8 Sep
08:22
Jamali Maddix gets the run of Hackney Empire’s 1,275 seats
The Hackney Empire holds 1,275 people. On Thursday 22 October it hands the lot of them over to a fictional pirate radio station from Brentford.…
Section
Comedy News
The latest updates from the global comedy scene, including industry announcements, major deals, legal stories, platform changes, and breaking news affecting comedians, venues, and audiences.
The running order
6 Sep
20:47
BBC New Comedy Awards heats put 30 comics on six free Coventry shows
Thirty acts, six shows, and doors at six on a Tuesday Thirty comics will play six shows across three nights this month, in a shed…
6 Sep
12:55
Fringe says no to moving 2027, schools go back on 18 August
Susie McCabe had read the same press release as everyone else. “However, I would counter that with yes the front end of the Fringe was…
5 Sep
07:37
Banana Cabaret’s Balham room reopens at £20 with no lineup refunds
“Not sure why we didn’t have a compere,” Dave Vickers told Chortle in January. He was describing a booking habit that survived four decades in…
3 Sep
19:56
The Comedy Poster Awards finally pay in cash, not flyers
The firm putting money behind this year’s poster prize explained itself in a single sentence. It’s a sentence with a fight in it. “In a…
3 Sep
09:04
47 MPs sign the grassroots comedy letter, 16 more couldn’t
Sixteen MPs wanted to put their names on the Live Comedy Association’s letter to the Culture Secretary and weren’t allowed to. Parliamentary protocol, apparently, which…
1 Sep
05:43
Fringe sold 2.8m tickets and Assembly still wants the dates moved
“It’s the last Friday of the Fringe and people are sitting with half-full rooms,” Susie McCabe posted in the closing days of August. By the…
30 Aug
09:45
Leicester’s unpaid comics fund has £4,000 of its £30,000, and an ISH prize
Five nominees, one £5,000 pot, and a creditor owed £103 Big Difference Company was the collapsed charity that ran Leicester Comedy Festival. Buried in its…
28 Aug
23:16
BBC hands out 10 comedy bursaries worth £15,000, four to London
Ten places, eleven names, up to £15,000 apiece. The BBC named the 2026 cohort of its Comedy Collective bursary on 28 August, during the Edinburgh…
27 Aug
17:09
Kate Dolan wins the Comedians’ Choice and £500 of PR, no cash
“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, I wasn’t even this happy on my wedding day,” Kate Dolan said on Wednesday afternoon at the Three Sisters.…
