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Mary O'Connell (everyone's favourite North London socialite) has announced her own comedy night, Maryland Comedy!

Thursday June 20th, Aces and Eights Bar & Pizza in Tufnell Park, closest tube station Kentish Town.

Tickets are £8.50 on Eventbrite, link in Mary's instagram bio, keep an eye out for the full lineup!

#comedy #stand up comedy #London #Instagram

[funnygirlszine]

If you've been itching for a new podcast, try the back catalogue of Kemah Bob's 'FOC IT UP!'

This comedy club promises to unapologetically centre and celebrate comedians of colour that are not cis-men.

You can also keep an eye out on their Instagram (@/focitupcomedy) for upcoming live show dates.

Available wherever you get your podcasts!

#comedy

[funnygirlszine]

"What zine-making taught me about writing: 1. shock yourself with honesty, 2. the truth is messy, 3. be brave like her. I use these riot grrrl skills every single day."

―Miranda July, author of No One Belongs Here More Than You

[funnygirlszine]

The Trouble with Panel Shows

Panel shows have only recently started diversifying their guest selections, with Frankie Boyle's New World Order notably leading the charge in having a wide range of female and POC guests.

Katherine Ryan explains that she had to leave Mock the Week because she knew they would never have two women on an episode, and it felt like she was taking a space that could be a career changer for a less established female comedian.

You can read more about the trouble with panel shows on page seven of Funny Girls, available now on Issuu, link in pinned post!

Another great resource that helps visualise the disparity is the website below, which tracks the gender split on big panel shows in the UK year by year. It's crazy to look at some of the stats from years gone by, but the improvements are very hopeful!

#katherine ryan #panel show #british comedy #comedy #funnygirlszine

[funnygirlszine]

Kingston alumni London Hughes writes about the impact that moving to America has had on her career.

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Comedy Clubs in London

Living in London for the past year and getting to explore all of the comedy venues has been such a treat! Here's a round up of some of my favourites.

Angel Comedy @ The Bill Murray, Islington

The king of the London comedy scene, Angel has everything. You catch huge name WIPs, free new material shows every day of the week, sketch shows, competitions, and even take a Stand Up Beginner's Course. The schedule is jam packed, with multiple shows a day, even from 1pm until 11pm on weekends. The Camden Head is their second venue, hosting Angel Comedy Fridays and Saturdays. Don't live in London? Join the Angel Comedy Thursday LIVESTREAM every week at 8pm!

Top Secret Comedy Club, Covent Garden

Top Secret have recently opened a second venue, now with double the secrets! The lineups are kept on lockdown, and the guests could be anyone from new names to TV legends. Tickets start at just £1 for the earlier shows, so it's definitely worth it for the chance to discover new comics. Recently I've seen Jeff Innocent, Laura Smyth, and Marcel Lucont here. Do keep in mind that you're usually expected to make a donation on your way out.

Camden Comedy Club

Particularly good for jam-packed mixed bill nights, super high quality acts. Friday shows by The Rat Pack, and regular '& Friends' evenings that see a big name MCing the evening.

2NorthDown, King's Cross

Super cool underground venue (literally! bring a friend because there's no signal!) with lots to offer throughout the week. Giddy Aunt Improv currently has their London residency here, and every last Tuesday of the month is £2 Tuesdays, showcasing new material for up and coming acts.

Hackney Empire, Hackney

Technically a theatre, rather than a club, but this iconic venue is home to big name tours, so it's always good to keep an eye on what's on.

The Comedy Store

Legendary venue. Their mixed bill nights do have some tough competition, but where they're really strong is the improv offerings! The Comedy Store Players perform on Sundays, and Paul Merton & Suki Webster have a regular slot for their improv show as well. The Funny Girls zine front cover pays homage to the Comedy Store logo.

Live at the Clapham Grand, Clapham

An excellent venue with excellent comedy nights. It's best to sign up to the mailing list for these, because the shows don't come around too frequently. When they do, they're perfectly curated with the best of the best, lineups that mesh together seamlessly. Groups of 4 can sit at tables in the stalls or circle.

Always Be Comedy @ The Tommyfield, Kennington

ABC with James Gill is truly one of the greats, a favourite for comedians. The shows sell out very quickly so signing up to the mailing list is the way forward. Shows are often listed under cryptic names, and the mailing list reveals which comedians these are linked to - it also provides clues for some mystery guests. The Tommyfield serves delicious food, so head early to grab a seat at the pub before heading upstairs to Always Be. James also hosts the Always Be Comedy podcast alongside Tim Lewis, where they sit down with comedians and curate their dream gig. The podcast has also began the Friday show Comedy Heroes, where James and Tim discuss legends that have shaped comedy.

Other notable mentions

Up The Creek, Greenwich

Backyard Comedy, Bethnal Green

99 Club, Leicester Square

Soho Theatre, Soho

Boat Show Comedy, Embankment

Downstairs at the Kings Head, Crouch End

Big Belly, Southbank

#comedy #stand up comedy

[funnygirlszine]

UK Comedy Clubs & Nights

We're so lucky to have such a rich comedy culture in Britain, with iconic permanent clubs as well as regular nights, events, and festivals.

Building on a couple of suggestions included in Issue #1, here's a list of some big players across the country! London will get its own post!

Manchester

Frog and Bucket

Creatures of the Night Comedy Club

The Comedy Store at The Bierkeller

XS Malarkey

Hootch Comedy Club

The Laughienda

Liverpool

Hot Water

Dead Funny Comedy Night @ Outpost

Baltic Market monthly

Comedy Takeover at Liverpool Irish Centre

Newcastle

The Stand Newcastle

The Craic Factory

Funhouse @ The Rigger

Glasgow

Laugh In The Park Festival

Club 45 @ Blackfriars

The Stand Glasgow

The Comedy Cabaret

The Glee Club

Glasgow International Comedy Festival

The Drygate Comedy Lab

Bristol

The Comedy Cabaret @ Pryzm

Bristol Comedy Garden

Comedy @ The Lazy Dog

White Bear Comedy @ The Room Above

Comedy @ The Square

Smoke & Mirrors Comedy & Magic

Cardiff

The Glee Club

Moonday's Comedy Night @ The Moon

Rebel Rebel Comedy Night @ Tiny Rebel Pub

Dolly Chicken @ The Flute & Tankard

Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Fringe

Monkey Barrel

The Stand Edinburgh

Comedy @ The Canon's Gait

Hoots Comedy @ Hootenannies

Cracking New Jokes Show @ Dragonfly

Birmingham

Just the Tonic @ Rosies

Closeup Comedy @ Hockley Social Club

The Glee Club

Big Deal Comedy @ The Old Joint Stock

Leeds

Kirkstall Abbey Comedy Festival

The Comedy Club @ HiFi

The Wardrobe

Really Funny Comedy

The Comedy Cabaret

Nottingham

Just the Tonic @ Metronome

NCF @ Canalhouse Bar

West Bridgford Comedy Club

Comedy in the Caves

Brighton

Brighton Comedy Garden

Secret Comedy Club

Komedia

The Gag Factory

The Forge Comedy Club

Live at Brighton Dome

Belfast

Ulster Hall

Lavery's Comedy Club

The Empire Laughs Back @ Empire Music Hall

Queen's Comedy

Waterfront Hall

Other notable mentions

Comedy Cow, Milton Keynes

The Red Card Comedy Club, Norwich

Jericho Comedy, Oxford

The Leadmill, Sheffield

Open Comedy, Leith

Comedy Garden, St Albans & Cambridge

#comedy #stand up comedy #british comedy

[funnygirlszine]

Now on ISSUU, Funny Girls zine issue #1!

Photography credits

PBJ Management (Rachel Fairburn page 4), Image free for editorial use (Sophie Duker page 5), Rachel Sherlock (Mary O'Connell page 10), Shutterstock (Gina Yashere page 13), Carla Guler (London Hughes page 14), Image origin unclear (Fatiha El-Ghorri page 15), Karla Goblet (Rosie Holt page 19)

[funnygirlszine]

Mary O'Connell's show, Money Princess, was all about the stress of a life under capitalism when you have no money.

That all changed for Mary in 2022 when she won the Only Fans Comedy competition (judged by comedy icons London Hughes, Jamali Maddix, and Mae Martin). Boasting the biggest cash prize in comedy, this Money Princess suddenly had a £100,000 creative fund from OF.

A journey into comedy like no other, you can find a short interview with Mary in Funny Girls zine Issue #1.

You can watch all four episodes of the competition at the link below, as well as explore Mary's website for her social links and upcoming shows.

[funnygirlszine]

The TikTokification of stand up

Since the pandemic, stand up comedy has migrated online. Most clubs have a setup that records the stage, and comedians will often share their best clips on TikTok or as an Instagram reel.

In many ways this is great! It grows potential audiences and just a few viral clips could dramatically increase the comedian's fanbase and boost ticket sales for their shows.

However, it does appear to have changed the culture of live shows, and some audience members base their expectations on just that 30 second clip.

In particular, the clips that do best often involve the comedian doing crowd work or, more often than not, dealing with hecklers. This appears to have led to an expectation at clubs that comedians want the audience to join in, or offer up a punchline, but this is not usually the case.

Another issue we see is audience members getting frustrated that a comedian is doing a bit that they've already seen online. But of course jokes are repeated, they've been written for the show run, and just because they also did it on Live at the Apollo doesn't mean they'll drop it!

In an interview with BroadwayWorld, Rachel Fairburn is asked if she has noticed a difference in audience behaviour since the increase in viral crowd work clips on social media. You can read the full interview here:

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sikisa & friends at camden comedy club

24/04

Hosted by superstar Sikisa (immigration lawyer by day funny girl by night!) this mixed new material gig was a great break in the week.

Joined by Rob Gilbert, Danny Scott, Sinead Parker, Matt Smith, and our girl Sophie Duker.

It was a real treat to hear some of Sophie's material for her new show 'But Daddy I Love Her'. She's been assessing the vibe she wants to go for this year, and has decided it's full delulu, she's ready to pursue the hot girl life.

Afterwards I got the chance to speak to Sophie, and tell her a little about the Funny Girls project. She was very determined that we got the best lighting, and said that the zine sounded really good!

So officially, we have the Sophie Duker seal of approval!

#stand up comedy #sophie duker #comedy

[funnygirlszine]

Fern Brady's excellent special 'Autistic Bikini Queen' is out now on Netflix - it's already hit top ten in the UK!

Tickets for her current show, 'I Gave You Milk to Drink', can be found on her website:

You can keep up with her on insta @/fernfrombathgate

#fern brady #funnygirlszine #stand up comedy #comedy

[funnygirlszine]

Pink!

Funny Girls had to be pink, an homage to my favourite zine 'I (Heart) Amy Carter', but is there something morally grey in going for a 'girls colour' for a feminist publication?

“I am a bad feminist because I am … a woman who loves pink.”

- Roxanne Gay, Bad Feminist

Society has been arbitrarily assigning colours to gender for ages, pink for girls, blue for boys, you get it. We can challenge gendered norms, reclaiming a colour that has historically been used to limit and define women.

The act of reclaiming pink isn't new, and feminist movements have frequently embraced it as a symbol of empowerment and solidarity time (see pussyhats!). It's fun to embrace pink, because it's important to give women the option to define femininity on their own terms. We can celebrate diversity and individuality, acknowledging that there's no single way to be a woman.

Eliana Dockterman explores if pink is still a 'girl colour' in an article for Time Magazine, looking at its changing reputation and analysing Barbie's impact.

#pink #zines #funnygirlszine

[funnygirlszine]

Check out Funny Women, a community for women in comedy that offers support and mentorship to comedians.

[funnygirlszine]

The Riot Grrrl Collection has been instrumental in inspiring Funny Girls. This archive is so important, and it's amazing to see entire zines (or excerpts) from the original riot grrrl movement photographed and documented in this way.

The original texts were pushing for a 'girl revolution', expressing frustration at the female experience and anguishing for female liberation. Listening to female comedians talk about their experiences, still dealing with discrimination from producers, still pushing against the 'girls aren't funny' crowd, summons up similar feelings of frustration.

[funnygirlszine]

We Peaked at Paper: An Oral History of British Zines

Authors Gavin Hogg and Hamish Ironside travelled around the UK over a period of five years, interviewing a topically wide range of twenty zinemakers.

The book does not approach these conversations from an academic angle, and the foreword stresses that they are not trying to establish any thesis. It's an insightful read that really demonstrates the appeal of zines as an art form - open to anyone with no restrictions, a passionate and community oriented creative expression.

'This is a volume that celebrates amateurism, and will be cherished by those who favour the local over the global, the home-made over the mass-produced.'

It can be purchased directly from the publisher, the independent business Boatwhistle Books.

#zines

[funnygirlszine]

Victoria Wood: The Secret List - Part One

Victoria Wood, British comedy icon, left an indelible mark on our comedy landscape, with groundbreaking work that celebrated women in all their complexity. This post will discuss episode one of the BBC documentary 'Victoria Wood: The Secret List', that takes viewers through Victoria's life and career via a list of her favourite sketches and performances that was discovered after her passing.

Audiences are first introduced to Victoria on the 1974 ITV show 'New Faces'. In 1976, she is known for performing funny songs on BBC's 'That's Life', a show that was also written and presented by another woman, Esther Rantzen. In the documentary, arts critic Mark Lawson discusses how rare it was to see two women in a studio, and remembers thinking 'wow there's a second one on screen!'

In 1978, Victoria wrote the full length play 'Talent', which made its way to television after a very successful run in a Sheffield theatre. It was huge for a play on television to have been written by a woman and centre on female characters, and it ushered in a new type of comedy that put women at the forefront.

One of the first female comedy duos on television, she teamed up with good friend Julie Walters for 'Wood & Walters'. After this ended, Victoria honed her stand-up skills on a nationwide tour, paving the way for her biggest triumph: 'Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV'.

The BBC offered her the six part sketch show in 1984, where she was at the top of her game, creating inspired sketches that parodied popular daytime TV formats. She single-handedly wrote and ordered all of the stand-up and sketches, as well as at least one original song per episode, rather than using a team of writers as is usually standard on sketch shows.

Victoria surprised audiences at the time by creating multilayered female characters and tackling themes that were rarely discussed on TV, such as the menopause. Songs like 'Keep Right on Shopping' celebrated the everyday 'middle aged women dressed in beige'. She fearlessly reclaimed female experiences that were deemed as taboo, sparking important conversations and destigmatising topics.

The documentary features commentary from comedians Sophie Willan and Rachel Fairburn, and it's really interesting to see Victoria Wood's clear impact on their careers in their own work - Sophie's semi-autobiographical TV show 'Alma's Not Normal' and Rachel's recent foray into character comedy.

This show also features the song 'King Kong' that Victoria wrote and recorded for a university project about a 25 foot high fibreglass gorilla statue on display in Birmingham. This hasn't been published to YouTube as far as I can tell so you'll have to watch the whole thing to see it - it's an absolute treat and will definitely get stuck in your head!

Stay tuned for further discussion on the second part of this documentary, and info on where to watch!