BATH Comedy Festival returns from 21st March to 19th April with more than 100 shows, featuring well over 300 performances, with big names at Bath Forum including Dead Ringers, Paul Merton and Suki Webster, Harry Enfield and Troy Hawke.
The festival also brings a host of acts to its intimate upstairs room at the Ring O’Bells in Widcombe. The list includes relative newcomers and award-winning rising stars like Madeleine Brettingham and Kev Mud, and well-established circuit favourites Phil Nichol, Alistair Barrie, Rosie Holt and Alan Francis.
The programme at Widcombe kicks off on 1st April with Terry Alderton & Friends, part of the newly formed Live Comedy Day, set up by the Live Comedy Association and supported by BBC Radio 4.
Regular venue partner the Rondo Theatre hosts a range of performers including Jessica Fostekew and Hal Cruttenden. The Old Theatre Royal has Hasan Al-Habib, and ‘Super Saturdays’ presented by The Fez Comedy Club, featuring John Hegley, Sooz Kempner and Phil Kay. New on the Bath scene, The Jesters Comedy Club offers an underground comedy club backdrop with shows every day, and as always there are some affordable ‘pay what you feel’ gigs and open mic nights. Basically, there is comedy for everyone.
And Bath Comedy Festival wouldn’t be the same without the bonkers bus tour The Wine Arts Trail (T.W.A.T.) – discovering new businesses and secret corners of Bath with a glass of wine and a ‘happening’ at each stop.
Festival director Nick Steel says: “This year’s festival line-up is an impressive mixture of well-known comedy stalwarts and rising stars, as well as continuing our esteemed New Act Competition and regular favourites and unique events like The Wine Arts Trail. Bath Comedy Festival is widely recognised as a destination for comedy and a key date in the city’s annual cultural calendar. We can’t do it without you, so join us as we welcome both Bath residents and visitors … and have a laugh!”
For more information please see: www.BathComedy.com or check out the What’s on pages, which are correct at time of going to press.
Pictured: Madeleine Brettingham; Paul Merton and Suki Webster