Where will you be on comedy's 'Super Tuesday'?

Comedy proves how similar it is to catching a bus next week, as three great gigs come along at the same time, forcing the city's laugh-addicts to pay their money and take their choice, hoping that they don't end up on the bus that's full of screaming babies or abusive drunkards, and breaks down half way to its destination. Tuesday 14th May is 'Super Tuesday' in Leicester, and your comedy choices are as follows:

No safety net: Tony Law

FESTIVAL AWARD NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED!!

As those involved in the festival have been slowly catching up on sleep and trying to restore some sense of normality to their lives, the merry band of festival judges have been deliberating and arguing the toss over which shows and venues deserve special recognition at the festival awards ceremony later this month. The nominations were unveiled earlier today, and there are some pretty surprising choices!

Nominated - Leanne Mckie reprised her role as local crooner 'Eng'
 in Barbara Steele's Wheels of Steel

Obviously I'm delighted to see my good friend Leanne Mckie's epic 2 hour cavalcade of mentalness Barbara Steele's Wheels of Steel nominated for Best Show, alongside Francesca Martinez and newly-crowned Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year Romesh Ranganathan amongst others. Spunky young kiwi Rhys Mathewson is up for Best New Show in a strong field including local songster Anthony King and TV regular Charlie Baker.

FESTIVAL DIARY DAY 3 - Four shows and a seminar...

Saturday was rather a hefty day of comedy-viewing...

It began unreasonably early, with a 10am seminar at DMU's Pace building, in which a panel of comedy luminaries discussed the development of live comedy from the origins of the Alternative Comedy movement at the end of the 1970s (or the beginning of the 80s - this was a matter of some contention), through the 90s 'Comedy is the new rock&roll' era to the current environment of megastar arena tours and the lucrative panel show circuit, and ended by asking what's in store for the future of live comedy. It was a fascinating two hours, often dominated by the always lively and forthright Kate Copstick, who left the audience in no doubt as to her views on the current crop of TV comedians - stating in her typically reserved manner that she could shit in a bag, put an 'As seen on Mock the Week' sticker on it and people would flock to see it live. Also on the panel was Comedy Store founder Don Ward, who revealed his plans to record shows at his clubs and screen them in theatres across the country, as well as starting to stream them live on the net. This was greeted with some concern from the panel, who wondered whether this sort of thing would stop people bothering to go out to see live comedy in the smaller venues - as if to ask why would people go out and pay money to see half-formed sets by inexperienced acts when they can stay at home and watch top acts live in HD for free. This fear was tempered, though, by the feeling that there is perhaps too much live comedy around at the moment, and the good acts and venues would always survive, whilst the less competent would have to give up or find their own audience online.