Handmade Festival - full of lovingly handcrafted comedy

With one May Bank Holiday weekend all done and dusted, it's fair to assume most of us are already looking forward to the next one at the end of the month. And unless you've been under a rock or in a coma recently, you'll probably be aware that Handmade Festival is taking place over the next Bank Holiday weekend. An evolution of White Noise festival which has seen a host of local bands playing at Firebug over the last few years, Handmade is a full-on arts festival, with music, film, performance, art and of course, comedy, taking place across the city.

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 7 - fever dreams at the Looking Glass

Dear readers, I must apologise.
For I know that you have come to expect from me your daily round-up of the previous evening's festival shenanigans. Well it is my sad duty to inform you that yesterday I fell prey to the dreaded 'festival lurgy'. Too many days of racing from show to show in the icy cold, then sitting in hot, airless rooms stuffed with people and their various germs, meant that I was unable to go out into the festival yesterday, as my brain and body became gripped with an intense fever, and I became delirious for several hours.

I have had fevers before, but I have never in my life experienced fever dreams like these. Obviously I have spent most of my time in pubs and bars watching comedy shows recently, so it makes sense that most of my feverish mental journey was framed by the bare brick walls reminiscent of the Looking Glass basement - I went on some incredible and ridiculous adventures, but every now and then I would look around and realise I was still down there, surrounded by semi-familiar figments of my imagination, with no sense of time, no way out.