Brand-new Brighton comedy festival already eyeing up expansion next year

SussexWorld

Brighton Dome’s first annual Comedy Festival is about to hit the ground running, already eyeing up big plans for expansion next year.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to

00:06speak to Rosie Crane, who is the comedy producer at Brighton Dome and has put together Brighton

00:11Dome's first comedy festival, which is coming up just the first weekend of half-term. What's

00:18the thinking behind a new comedy festival? What are you wanting to do with this?

00:23We want to create something that feels inclusive to everybody, that we're putting on a festival

00:30that hopefully makes everyone feel welcome. We're captioning every single show, so that's

00:36the first.

00:37And it's possibly a first, isn't it?

00:40Which I believe is the first comedy festival to have every single show captured. And we

00:45have family shows, we have shows for really young kids like Shelf, which is an amazing

00:49show for young kids, and Phil Kay's Give Me a Left Shoe, which is where children, when

00:55they arrive, they'll have to give Phil their left shoe and then they have to do a little

00:58turn to earn it back. So we're hoping we won't end up with too many shoes at the end of that.

01:05And there's also a new Bleeped Night, which is for kind of 11 plus age.

01:09A get out first, do you think?

01:11A get out first, yes.

01:12How does that work?

01:14It's kind of, it's the sister night to our Live at Brighton Dome show, which will be

01:17in the comedy, in the concert hall on Saturday night with Sarah Pascoe, Jamali Maddox. In

01:22the Corn Exchange we'll have Live at Brighton Dome Bleeped, which will be grown up comedy

01:27but with no swearing, no adult content, and the age rating is 11 plus. So we hope that

01:33young people who are huge comedy fans, who watch lots of comedy at home, online or on

01:37their phones, can come out to their first proper comedy show in the evening with their

01:42parents or with their family and enjoy a proper night out.

01:46But as you say, it's not just the youngsters, there's plenty of adults around who say,

01:50I like comedy.

01:51Yeah, I think there are lots, there's a huge audience out there of grown-ups who prefer

01:57less swearing in comedy. And so we're, yeah, we're inviting them all to come and see that

02:02night.

02:03Absolutely. And this has been a while in the planning and it's clearly a planned act programme.

02:07But the thing that I find remarkable is that it hasn't started yet. But talking about next

02:12year, it's going to be more than twice the size, isn't it? That is confidence.

02:15That's the plan at the moment. That's the plan we have for next year, yeah. But yes,

02:20that's what we're working on already. Yeah, I've already got a few shows confirmed and

02:24well, they'll be going on sale soon and we'll announce the beginning of the line-up after

02:30this year.

02:31But clearly, if you're thinking along those lines, you are clearly getting good vibes

02:34from the festival. That hasn't actually happened yet, aren't you? What's the feedback like,

02:39the thirst for this, would you say?

02:41It's been great. Everyone just seems really excited about it and the sales have been really

02:46good so far. It's looking great. There's just so much, I think, there's so much to do within

02:51the festival as well. There'll be exhibitions from Modern Toss. They have a portrait gallery

02:56too in the founders room so you can come and draw your own portrait with Modern Toss. You

03:00can go in their portrait booth and they will draw your portrait too. And they have a huge

03:05exhibition in the Corn Exchange. So throughout Saturday and Sunday, those are all free events

03:11for people to just come and enjoy during the day and as well as the kind of the kids

03:16shows and then all of the amazing adult shows in the evening, which there's too many. I'm

03:22still trying to decide which ones I get to see as well because there's just so many that

03:25I want to be watching and I'm not going to be able to fit them all in.

03:28Well, that's a nice position to be in, isn't it, really?

03:31It is, yeah.

03:33Absolutely. Well, it sounds like it's very, very quickly going to become an absolutely

03:36essential part of Brighton, isn't it? Congratulations on the first festival.

03:41I hope it goes brilliantly. Lovely to speak to you.

03:43Thank you so much. Lovely to speak to you too.

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