Zoom comedy might not be in-person comedy, but at the Oxfordshire Mind Comedy Gala on Saturday night, it was actually kind of… fun? Stand-ups Ivo Graham, Janine Harouni, Huge Davies, Helen Bauer, Chelsea Birkby, Rosie Jones, and Nish Kumar proved that online comedy works, and MC Alex Farrow kept an impressive crowd of over 450 concurrent viewers comfortable (though, as he joked, they were in their own homes). The show benefited Mind UK, a charity supporting mental health initiatives headed by Stephen Fry, who spoke briefly to the crowd in a recorded address.
There were two questions heading into the night: how much money could the crowd raise, and how well have the comedians adapted their acts to fit the online format? Both questions were answered emphatically, as the audience raised over £3000 and the comedians employed a multitude of fresh tactics.