UK Women In Comedy Festival launches
Laughing Cows, the all-female comedy club set up by Hazel O’Keefe, are launching the UK’s first comedy festival solely for women.
The Women In Comedy Festival will take place across Greater Manchester and the North West in October, with fifteen shows across twelve venues announced today.
Zoe Lyons, Susan Murray, Hayley Ellis, Ava Vidal, Jen Brister, Angie McEvoy and Maureen Younger will all play the festival and have pledged their support for the project.
O’Keefe hopes the festival, which runs 5-27 October, will reflect “what women in comedy want to showcase and discuss” and give female comics an opportunity to “get feedback from industry, insiders and professionals.”
A press release reads: “With a strong statement and a mixture of promotional, developmental and showcasing events, the festival will be an opportunity for female comics across the UK to meet, perform, debate, discuss and get feedback from industry, insiders and professionals, all aiming to put an end to circular conversations and blow certain myths out of the water whilst to promoting the best of female comedy.”
And reflecting on the announcement, Susan Murray told Giggle Beats: “I’m so incredibly bored of the ‘are women funny?’ question, if it even really exists.
“I think it only exists in the minds of moronic men who hang out with moronic women who aren’t funny, and that, quite frankly, is their tough shit.
“All my female friends are funny, otherwise I wouldn’t be friends with them. What would be the point? Top marks to Hazel [O’Keefe] for organising this…”
She added: “If you come I’ll show you my funny and you won’t even have to show me yours first!”
There is also a Women in Comedy Festival based in Boston, Massachusetts.
The US edition, which celebrated its sixth year in March, also allows men to perform – though the Laughing Cows website does not state whether this is the case with the UK festival.
For more information on the UK Women in Comedy Festival, including details of how to get involved, see: womenincomedy.co.uk
