Bill Murray venue jumps on lockdown relaxation
Comedy clubs are wasting no time in reopening once Covid lockdown restrictions relax on Monday.
And London’s Bill Murray is taking that to extremes, opening bang on midnight for its – and indeed the UK’s – first live indoor comedy gig of the year.
Comic Barry Ferns, co-founder of Angel Comedy Club that runs the venue, told Chortle: ‘The idea actually came from a joke - as a lot of our ideas come from!
‘In a meeting someone said, May 17? Let’s do a gig at one minute past midnight, on May 17. Everyone laughed. Then there was a silence, as we all began to think of the fun of actually doing that, and everyone pretty much at once decided that the sooner we can start gigging again the better!
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.
Nick Helm s Phoenix rises again : News 2021 : Chortle : The UK Comedy Guide chortle.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chortle.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.