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