6 Jun
05:56
Brighton Fringe gave 386 comedies just two awards this year
Brighton Fringe ran 386 comedy shows across May and handed out exactly two comedy awards for them – one audience vote, one judged. The audience…
Open Comedy Newsroom
Page 8
The running order
5 Jun
09:12
Leicester Comedy Festival axes Abbey Park gig, keeps the £3 fees
Sunday 14 June was meant to be Lou Sanders, Phil Ellis, Tom Rosenthal, Kiri Pritchard McLean and Nabil Abdulrashid on a stage in Abbey Park…
4 Jun
10:47
Frankie Boyle’s company is sitting on £4.24m
Frankie Boyle’s comedy company, McShane Karate Limited, was sitting on £4,244,000 in shareholder funds at the end of August 2025. That’s the figure on the…
4 Jun
04:10
Jon Petrie leaves the BBC for Hat Trick in August
“A fairly brutal reminder of my age” That’s Jon Petrie, the BBC’s outgoing director of comedy. He’s reacting to taking the creative director job at…
1 Jun
01:19
Matt Hollins wins the £150 comedy prize 100 over-35s entered
The trophy is a pigeon, the prize was £150, and the qualifying rule is that you can’t be a professional. That is the Not So…
31 May
01:36
Aberdeen Comedy Festival 2026 stretches to three weekends
Three weekends instead of two Russell Howard opens the Music Hall on Saturday 19 September with a show called “Don’t Tell the Algorithm”. It’s the…
30 May
07:41
Gilded Balloon hands £2,000 each to five Fringe shows
£2,000. That’s what each of the five shows on the inaugural Gilded Balloon Show Support Fund will get this August. Tim Minchin and his wife…
29 May
12:11
Ania Magliano gets the Rose d’Or gig at Kings Place
The Rose d’Or press release dropped on 13 May with a sentence I genuinely had to read twice. Ania Magliano was asked why she’d taken…
29 May
05:07
Simon Amstell’s first Fringe headline run since 2009 is two nights long
Two nights, 7pm, McEwan Hall. £24 a ticket or £22 with a concession, 70 minutes, 16+. That’s Simon Amstell’s entire 2026 Edinburgh Fringe, on sale…
28 May
04:19
BBC New Comedy Awards pulls every 2026 heat to Coventry
Applications for the BBC New Comedy Awards opened on Wednesday morning, and the geography has narrowed considerably. Every heat in 2026 will be filmed in…
