Good afternoon and welcome to the Women and Equalities Committee. Today we are holding our second oral evidence session on the experience of women in live comedy. We have two panels today. We are delighted to hear first from Aimee Perry, head booker at Frog and Bucket Comedy Club, and Kelly Edwards-Good, senior marketing and press officer at Komedia, Brighton, where I have laughed many, many times before. Thank you both for coming, and welcome. The first question is about the representation of women in live comedy. I am going to come to you first, Aimee. We have heard that comedy line-ups often lack women, including those from minority ethnic groups. As a club, how do you approach booking comedians and ensuring that you have diverse line-ups that reflect the kinds of audiences we see today?

First, I just want to quickly say, kia ora, Ko Aimee tōku ingoa, Nō Aotearoa ahau. He hōnore, he whakahī ki te tū hei māngai mō ngā wāhine me tō tātou haumaru. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. I am a Kiwi and I would be remiss if I did not speak Te Reo Māori today.

That is amazing. It is a first for our Committee.

It is just a real honour for me. I have it translated here for you, but I just pretty much said my name, where I am from and that I feel really proud today to speak on the safety of women. To answer your question, as well as diversity, you have to have it consciously in your mind every day that you are booking women in the line-up, and that is something we do continuously. You have to fight continuously. It is a hard job; it is very tiring and a lot of people give up quite easily. You have to remind yourself that you cannot give up; you have to keep going. That is something that I am conscious of. I do all the progression, so I do all the open mics and I do the people who are moving up into our trial space on a Thursday and our pro weekends. I feel really proud because this year we have seen a growth in women doing Beat the Frog, which is a gong show. I don’t know if you have ever seen it. It is probably like Parliament. You have little signs, and people either last the five minutes or they don’t. Out of the 25 heats, 12 women have gone through, which means they go through to the semi-finals and the final. That is our highest amount yet. So the audiences are changing—this is the first year I have seen it—but, like I said before, you have to really think about it and work really hard to keep it at the forefront of your mind that you are booking women first and then doing the rest.

We have heard from previous panels that some clubs have policies directly looking at a behaviour code of conduct, or whether it is around the equality and diversity angle. Do you have one?

Yes, we do.

How is it received by performers, or potential performers in the audience?

We are quite lucky in Manchester; it is a diverse city. We get a lot of stags coming to our venue but if we have any misogyny—for example, sometimes when an act is on stage, they will get a heckler—our team are briefed and pretty hot on that. The good thing about Manchester city council is it has a lot of women’s safety meetings, which our senior team go to. I have been to three of them myself. Our door team are really good at getting in and getting these people out if need be. Also, the majority of the females performing on pro night are pretty equipped to put those men’s egos down.

Yes, never heckle the person with the mic.

Exactly.

Kelly, Brighton Komedia has one of the best gender equality splits of all the clubs we have had; it is 60% to 40%, which is good news. How have you achieved that? Has it been by a proactive policy and proactive work?

Interestingly, we checked our data again and this year it will be 42.97%. It is important to say first that we have been around for 32 years and run comedy clubs for pretty much that whole time but it has not always been this way. We have not always had balanced line-ups. We have worked with collaborators in the past who did not share our ideas on balance and diversity, so one of the big changes that we made was around who we work with. For example, at the Komedia Comedy Club we currently work with a promoter called Little Wander using a highly collaborative approach. We meet regularly and we write incredibly detailed show reports, which both our staff and theirs read, featuring feedback on how every comedian was received to ensure there is a constant feedback loop between us. In terms of ensuring diversity, we always bear in mind that we should try to avoid all-male, all-white line-ups; it is not a written rule but it is something that we work towards. Ultimately, we have balance but at the same time we only book comedians who we believe will work in that format. We never say, “Well we have three guys; let’s just find an inexperienced stand-up.” We cannot do that because it would not be good for our comedy club audience. We are just putting on the people we believe are strong enough to perform.

That follows on nicely to my next question. Have you noticed any audience preferences related to comedians’ gender and ethnicity? Can this impact ticket sales at all?

We have not noticed an impact on ticket sales at all. It is important to say that we are not only a comedy club. We have 700 events a year—music, club nights, theatre; absolutely everything—so our audience is incredibly diverse. I don’t know if that lends something to it, but we have never actually noticed a dip in ticket sales. Even when Komedia Comedy Club does International Women’s Day specials and random Komedia Comedy Club weekends that only feature women, we never notice a drop. When we have promoted International Women’s Day line-ups in the past, we have had quite a lot of online backlash, specifically on X—formerly Twitter—such as horrible sexist comments about women. We have had horrible comments about people from the LGBT community when we put up stuff for Pride, and racist comments in Black History Month. Fortunately, that has not translated into ticket sales, which is heartening, so it seems like that is quite a separate microcosm to the actual people who are coming to see shows.

I will just flag that the Committee has come off X, and I came off X as soon as I became the Chair, because it was not a space that was real; it was not reflective of the real—

Yes, we left. We used to advertise on it because it is important that we have audiences at our comedy club to survive, but the second this started happening, we looked at our engagement, which was slow and we were not really getting any engagement on X. It is a nasty place, so we decided that we were absolutely not giving them money and left a couple of years ago.

Have you noticed any trends in ticket sales and audience preferences, Aimee?

The good thing about comedy clubs like the Frog and Bucket is that people trust us to put on a line-up. Even if they do call and we rattle off the line-up, most of the time they say, “Who?” The majority of audiences come because they trust the Frog and Bucket branding. The only comics they know might be from a TV show they watch. They trust us, so we are quite fortunate in that we are able to make sure that our line-ups are diverse—with women on them—as much as possible. Like I said, because younger audiences are coming, very rarely do we have issues nowadays; it is usually just a problem when we have a stag do and they are just puffing their chests because they have had a lot of alcohol or whatever. We mostly use TikTok these days because people want to watch clips, so we focus on that; we don’t really use X, but I suppose individual comedians would probably get more backlash or hateful comments there than a club.

What would you say to other clubs that really kicked back at this work to look at the gender disparities in performances and performers and said, “There just aren’t enough funny women”—the myth of women just not being funny? Do you ever have problems filling any of these slots?

No.

No. They are out there; it is about effort and putting the work in. Maybe there is something to be said on the effort and legwork it takes to find these people—this may be something we will touch on later—but they are there. Essentially, time is money, so I can understand why a really small promoter who does not have very many shows a month may not have the capacity or the drive to do that legwork. There is a bit of an argument to feed into about funding and things like that, which could encourage those people to do that work. But we have never had difficulty finding female comics.

It is about nourishing talent as well. I mentioned Beat the Frog and working hard to get more women into the open mic circuit. It is not necessarily the pro circuit that is struggling for women; it is the open mic circuit. That is where they drop off and turn away, because these individual shows in a pub do not have the protection, and unfortunately men just love to tell you how to do your job, even though they do not have the experience to do so.

I am so glad I was sitting down for that. Shocking!

Shock news! I have done The Glitter Project and I do a talk for the comedy course that we run and a lot of the time I tell them, “Don’t listen to these men and always take a female with you.” But it is the open mic circuit, in that first two to five years, where we see that drop off. Once they start getting regular employment, they really thrive and then you are actually having to book women six to nine months in advance just to get them.

Yes, our headliners are firmed up to December.

It is the same for us.

Amazing. For the benefit of those listening, can you just explain what Beat the Frog is, because otherwise they might be a bit confused?

Beat the Frog is a gong show. The audience—made up of mostly students—is given three cards. If they like you, they keep the cards down, but if two cards go up before five minutes, you are gonged off. It is great fun for the audience and a great training ground for comedians learning how to keep an audience on their side for five minutes, because 20 minutes is a really long time. A lot of talent has come through our doors with Beat the Frog. It is an open mic night but a little tougher.

Thank you. Finally, on an intersectional level, what key steps do you think need to be taken to increase the representation of women from minority ethnic groups in live comedy? We have heard testimony that they could not get a foot in the door in the first place, or they were basically being told things like, “Oh, no, I’m sorry, we’ve filled our brown woman comic for the night. We’re done now,” or bookers wanted them to speak only about their ethnicity or their religion, or the fact that they are a woman, and were really narrow and prescriptive about what they wanted them to talk about in a way that they would never do to a man. What would you say would be a really good step to improve that situation?

That is a big question.

Yes. It is about the education of bookers and promoters to look at the comedians for their ability, experience and material rather than their ethnicity, so that it does not feel like they are virtue signalling. Although it is important to focus on diversity in line-ups, it should not be a tick-box exercise. Something that was spoken about at the last session was where a club says, “Oh, well, we need a woman and it would be good if we had a person of colour. This person is a woman who is a person of colour—tick.” We are very aware of that at Komedia and we try our best not to do that.

It is also about society. No one wants their child to go into the arts. The Government do not recognise the arts in the way that they should. Arts are so important in the global world. We need art because that is how we express. We listen to music, we all read, we all watch TV and we all go to live performances. If the Government put more pressure on and take funding away from art, then how are people from those backgrounds, from small communities, going to see people who represent them? Lots of parents would rather their children become doctors or nurses to have some security because the arts do not provide that security. The Government need to support the arts and say, “The arts are important; we need more art in schools and universities.” But unfortunately those programmes are being cut more and more, so how is a small child from a diverse background who really wants to do the arts going to see that there is a path to take? Instead, they let go of those dreams; they think it is not safe because there is not enough money or representation. It starts from the top and dribbles down. We cannot make change at the bottom if no one at the top is helping us make change. I got passionate there!

Thank you. We will come on to funding on the second panel; we have some really targeted questions about funding. Kelly, do you want to add anything to that before I hand over?

I was going to say how important it is that we see diversity in line-ups. For instance, when somebody comes to our comedy club and sees a black woman as part of that line-up talking about her experiences, they might be someone who has not been exposed to those experiences before. They might not be someone who would choose to go to her solo show but they are being exposed anyway because comedy has that special gift of being accessible to people. It is really important to have those voices on the line-up.

I want to explore a bit more about the economics of the scene, particularly any degree of precariousness in it and, of course, the inequalities—I can see a reaction there straightaway. How well is the live comedy sector doing right now?

At Komedia, it has been precarious post-covid. Pre-covid was almost a boom time; if I am correct, we pretty much balanced our books—I am not even kidding—a week before lockdown. Post-covid, due to audience changes and people being inside too much and not being willing to get out, audience numbers initially boomed—2022 was a good year—and then just went down and down. This year it seems to be rebounding a little as maybe things settle down. People’s going out habits have changed. We used to have big groups of people; it is now mainly couples and only the odd larger group. People used to come to our comedy club multiple times a month and now we just do not see the numbers that we used to. Obviously, our income comes from ticket sales but also relies incredibly heavily on our bar. It just feels crazy for such an important industry to be relying on bar sales to survive, especially in a time when people are drinking less alcohol and have a healthier mindset; our spend per head is down massively. We are in a tricky situation and have struggled to stay afloat and stay open. That is the truth of it.

There are two parts to your question for me. First, at the moment, we are the only professional comedy club in Manchester. Through September to now is our most popular time because it is winter and it is cold. From now, we will start to see the effects of summer because of the weather, especially in Manchester, because as soon as the sun is out, no one is going inside.

They are on the beach.

Secondly, we also run a women in comedy festival, which we get no funding for; Jessica Toomey—my boss—and I run that on a volunteer basis. We run around like headless chickens trying to get 50 shows and seat them all on our own without any support. It is really tough because people love the idea of supporting women but they do not actually follow through. You also see that in sport. Obviously, the women’s rugby world cup last year was probably the biggest crowd they have ever had. Trying to get funding for women-led shows or programmes is really, really tough. As a comedy club, we are doing well at the moment because people want to come out in Manchester to see comedy. But in terms of supporting the other side programmes, it is a real struggle.

Do you think the effects of covid have had a particularly gendered impact at all?

No, I don’t think so. More audiences are actually more aware of what white men are saying and are not putting up with it any more. The old trope of the “Hey, my wife,” is not accepted anymore.

Yes, we don’t really programme many comedians like that.

But do you know what I mean? Pre-covid—

Oh yes, they wouldn’t put up with that material.

The audience’s mindset is changing. I am using that as an example—perhaps a bad one—of how the majority of that style of comedy is going out of fashion. More people want to see women on stage. The audiences are slowly catching up with what we have been trying to do.

We are quite a different venue. We have quite a lot of competition in Brighton, and some of them have funding because they are in heritage buildings or put on theatre and things like that. It is very hard for us, as a medium-sized comedy club, to compete with a larger venue just down the road that is putting on similar shows, even though we have been doing what we have for such a long time; there is no protection for us from that.

Moving on to remuneration in the sector, the live comedy sector survey 2025 found that the average wage of a comedian has fallen from just under £27,000 to £21,000 a year. How do you set a fair level of pay for performers, and what drives that?

For us specifically at Komedia, we may have an MC and three 20-minute slots, and one of those is the headliner but we do not pay the headliner more than the other two 20-minute slots. We have heard that quite a few comedy clubs do that. Technically, there is definitely no pay gap when it comes to gender, but even so, when we looked at our line-ups for the last two years, in 2026 we had 42% women but only 28% of those were headliners. It was even starker last year, when even though we had 36% women, we only had 16% female headliners. That is really telling of the kind of experience that these women have been given—or the lack of it—that they have not been able to get to that level, and if they cannot get to that level then they will not have further opportunities to make more money. So technically, there kind of is a pay gap.

We work a little differently. We are more about progression. Our compere and our headliner get paid the same, and the majority of our comperes are women, and if they are out of town, we give them a hotel.

That is true for us too.

The open will get a different rate, and the middle gets a smaller rate because they are only doing two nights, but three shows because we do two shows on a Saturday. On Thursday, we have trials to find new talent and they get paid. They will range from 10 to 15 to 20, so ours is moving up the steps, but like I said, our comperes and headliners are paid the same.

It is important to say that we have a 50:50 female-to-male MC situation—

Ours is higher.

Actually, this year more than half are women. So they are doing a really good job of being MCs, but that seems to be something—

It sounds as if there is a bit of a gender discrepancy there. Why women as comperes and men as headliners? It seems to be skewing that way.

I don’t know. An MC slot is not necessarily valued as highly as a headliner slot.

It is actually a harder job.

It is a hard job. You have to have the talent for it.

Yes, not everyone can be a compere; it is a really, really tough job. They are jumping out there; the audience is cold, and they are thinking, “I paid my money; make me laugh.” You have seconds to get them to trust you and trust that you are going to put on a good night. They are also seen three to four times in the night, whereas the headliner does 20 minutes, and that audience is ripping hot by the end, so the headliner has a kind of easier transition.

It has all been building up to the headliner.

It has been building, building, building up.

I would say it is because an MC slot is not necessarily valued as highly as a headliner slot. The lack of women in headliner slots says to me—this is what we think as a venue—that they are not being given the opportunities to gain enough experience to reach that level. It is not quite the same as an MC.

You’re saying that women are in the job that has the higher emotional demand and the lower social value and status. I can’t think of any parallels there at all!

How strange!

When you are pulling together line-ups, to what extent do you consider the potential for early-slot performers to take up additional gigs later in the evening? That is a bit of a technical thing about putting a line-up together.

Do you mean doubling with another comedy club?

Yes, I think so. How do you ensure equitable access to those opportunities? I suppose this is about how you structure a set and a programme.

I make a line-up like a playlist. I watch every show and think about and listen to the musicality of the comedy and how it is going to flow throughout the night. That is how I do a line-up. Especially for the trial spots, I will send them the full list of comedy clubs in the north-west they can double up with, along with a link to cheap accommodation. I do the same with the pros as well, although the majority of them will already know the information. We are quite open to them doubling up. In London, it is so easy; comedians can be doing five or six gigs a night. In the north, it is tougher to double up and for comics to know about these other clubs and individual promoters. I try to be as helpful and understanding as I possibly can be to know that then an act can think, “Yes, it’s worth coming out. It is worth me going to do this gig for less money, which will cover my costs.” As we know, trains and so on are extremely expensive. London to Manchester trains run late into the night but for some reason trains stop going from Manchester to London very early.

It is the same from Brighton to London.

It makes it hard for people who work at night to get back that same night.

I don’t know what our hard-and-fast rule is for doubling, but we have had some issues in the past where smaller, local clubs have essentially poached our acts and mirrored our line-ups. We have put the work in and then they have approached those people with a lower pay offer—but one that for the comedians is, “Oh, another 100 quid—that’s fine”—but they are technically benefiting from our work. We have a rule that we pay for acts’ hotels and we are one of the few places that do that. We will also pay a reduced fee for a second night. However, if people are doubling, we reduce what we pay for accommodation because, essentially, we are paying for that club to have that line-up and that comedian, without accommodation costs. Competition-wise locally, it is hard because people’s shows are technically on at the same time as us, which brings up a bit of an issue.

That is why we only have the hotel for the compere. They are with us all night and do not have the option of doubling. But that is on the understanding that they will not double up because we are covering the whole cost for three nights for them. We found it was easier for the other acts to find their extra gigs because, unfortunately, comics would do the same and other clubs would benefit.

It is important to say that part of the reason we offer hotels is because of late-night journeys home that might not be safe for female comedians.

We work with Get Off Live Comedy if complaints come forward. We take every complaint seriously, we investigate and we would advise with Get Off if something were to arise. If the complaint is investigated and upheld we will not book that comedian again. Sorry, I have fumbled over that question.

Like I said before, all the staff go to the women’s safety workshop—I don’t think that is the right word—run by Manchester city council. In terms of where it is coming from, it can be audience members but it can also be fellow comedians. Female comedians are a little more vulnerable, especially in the open mic circuit, because it could be their first or second time doing stand-up and they are going to a space that they do not know. It can be a bit of both though.

At Komedia it is all internal. We have a sexual harassment policy in place for staff and acts and we send it to acts a week before they appear and they have to agree to everything in it. Our staff are trained initially when they start and then every year. It is reviewed regularly with management; there are monthly meetings about these issues. We have a really good feedback loop with our staff as well. There is not really a hierarchy at Komedia; it is very much that everybody will be listened to and their input is valuable. The ops staff who are in the field every night see things that us daytime folk might not see. We have a really detailed route for reporting on any inappropriate behaviour; we make it super clear that there will be no repercussions from this reporting and we take it as faith that every report is legitimate and we will investigate every report.

There is no national body, and we might come on to talk about the potential of that. Obviously, as a venue, we have the ability and resources to put something like this in place, but for a smaller promoter, it is going to be hard to have such a formal thing in place. It would be very valid to have a national standard with nationalised training and reporting. In 2018, there was an article on the Chortle website that focused on why people were not reporting inappropriate behaviour. A lot of the time, the reasons given were that they were worried about repercussions and loss of work, and specifically that they would not go to the promoter because sometimes the promoter was the problem. In our venue, we have things in place that are objective, and they might feel safe reporting, but in these smaller clubs, there might be a policy but if the person running the night is the problem, then who do they go to?

There are individual venues, such as a bar that has a space upstairs that says, “Yeah, you can come and do a comedy show.” As a person who uses those venues, they sometimes forget that the artists are part of their staff when it comes to them being in the space. They just think, “Oh, you’re just here.” When I go to Manchester city council events, I have brought up quite a few times that artists also need to be protected, because I do not think that is in place either. We are quite fortunate because we are both in purpose-built comedy clubs or theatres, so we have all those things in place because we have to; our staff and door team all have to be trained.

Yes.

It is more looking at the smaller, independent nights. On the Beat the Frog website, there is a page just for women, and a great person called Alice Flick has done two PDFs: one for comedians about safety and how to protect yourself and another about people putting on their own shows. So there are documents about that, but it just needs more training overall and a body where—do you know what I mean? It is like teachers; you have to have a certificate or something like that.

Yes, especially, like Aimee said, in an above-a-pub capacity, where you are not an employee and might not even be being paid. Obviously, as we see from the pay that comedians get—

We will use a comedian as an example because that is easier than an audience member. As I said before, we take it very seriously and we investigate. We will always contact Get Off to get its advice on how we can move forward. We also make sure, especially with a female comedian, that they feel comfortable that we are taking this seriously and that we believe what they are saying. That is pretty much our step-by-step process. We are quite lucky that, as Jessica and I are both women, they feel a bit more comfortable talking to us; lots of women have talked to me in the past about certain incidents that have happened. Most of the time we will not work with the performer who caused the harm to the female comedian again.

Yes, it would be a legal issue. We have really robust reporting systems and we make it super clear to staff and people coming in how they can report and that they can report to multiple people. We are not saying, “You have to go to this man or this woman about this”; they can take different avenues. We want it to be as easy as possible for them to report it, no matter how small it is.

Yes.

I can’t say that I personally know that, but I am sure it is true. We could probably send through something afterwards about that.

No.

No. You guys use Get Off Live Comedy, which is a really great organisation and its fees are incredibly low, but it is important to say that it is also something that a national body should operate. If you have a promoter in a tiny club who is not willing to do the work on diversity and is not going to listen to women, they are not going to pay £10 to be part of that organisation. There could be an amazing organisation that provides external reporting and legal advice, but a membership fee could still be a hurdle for people to access that.

Kelly, you talked about the work that Chortle did in 2018. In my head that is only last year, but you know—

Yes, it was quite a long time ago.

Through that work, it discovered that a quarter of female comedians had been sexually assaulted and one in 13 had been raped by a fellow comic. Do you think the landscape for women comedians and safety when it comes to violence against women and girls has got better or worse?

It is really hard to speak for everyone, but specifically at our venue things may be moving in the right direction. We have a very open and safe feeling environment and it has changed quite a lot from pre-covid times. I am sure there was some toxic behaviour in the past, but perhaps if we are talking about specifics, we would have to send something in.

In terms of our individual comedy club, I have noticed, especially in the open mic circuit, that more women are feeling safer to come to our club, but a lot of them still have concerns about individual nights, and that is where the trouble is happening. Like I said, even just getting up on stage is quite vulnerable, and then to be in a room full of men is quite intimidating. That is why I said a lot of them drop out because little things can happen. I have had female comedians talk to me about a male offering to drive them home and they think, “Oh, great, I don’t have to catch a train,” and then the conversation in the car gets awkward. That might not seem much in the grand scheme of what is happening in the media, but these are the little things that make women not want to do stand-up anymore because a man has made them feel uncomfortable. A lot of that stuff is still happening; it is in the grassroots.

Perhaps that is the difference between us. As a medium-sized venue, people are a certain level when they come to us and we have rules and regulations. Perhaps they feel safer and that protects them. But when we talk about open mics and grassroots situations, women are obviously very open to abuse.

Kelly, you mentioned national bodies. It is interesting because the comedy sector is quite disparate; it seems that there is a lack of regulations and controls. Would you both like to see greater co-ordination or oversight of your sector?

Definitely. The biggest thing would be to have a national standard for reporting incidents. People often do not feel comfortable reporting to promoters and venues themselves. Coming back to Get Off Live Comedy, I am not speaking about it negatively in any way, but I would not want a national body to offer a similar thing to what it does—legal support on this kind of issue, and reporting. The national body should issue policy standards that each venue and promoter has to abide by. It should make it clear that you have to have a sexual harassment policy in place and that you have to provide avenues for people to feel safe. If we are talking about diversity, it must not say, “You must put on this many female comedians,” but it would be really important for it to set a national standard for venues and promoters and encourage diversity in their line-ups. Funding and training across the sector on a variety of issues that people face in our industry every day are important.

I second that and would say pretty much the same. We need to see some support, especially for the grassroots.

I am aware of the Live Comedy Association and CRAFT—I know that CRAFT is quite new. What involvement do you think national bodies like that could play, and do you think they will be beneficial?

Well, they keep us as promoters accountable.

They enable connection as well.

Connection, and somewhere that we can chat to.

It is such a fragmented industry—there are people putting on gigs in tiny rooms above pubs to stadiums, effectively—that connection across the board is—

One good thing about the LCA is that it is trying to do what music venues are doing. You get big comedians doing big venues across the country. When musicians do that, £1 goes towards grassroots music, but that does not happen in comedy. That money could support individual promoters to pay for Get Off membership, or support them to get the diversity or the training that they need, or just help comedians.

Aimee was talking about the Music Venues Trust. We will hopefully be a beneficiary of that because we are a grassroots venue that also puts on music, but there is a lot of dragging of feet about us eventually getting that money. There are people like Ticketmaster and stuff—you know, people have to voluntarily be involved in it, and there are a lot of people who do not want to be. I would probably expect that from a similar organisation. How long would it take for us to get that money in the end?

What barriers do you think there are to not only having national bodies for the live comedy sector but raising awareness of them? It is quite interesting that one of the witnesses in our last evidence session was not aware that the LCA and CRAFT existed.

We weren’t aware of CRAFT. Again, it is communication between every type of venue and night.

We only know about the LCA because of what happened in covid, when a lot of acts were not happening and a lot of venues did not get the support that they needed. That is when it began, because the Government were not acknowledging that the live comedy industry is an official industry.

We need to come together.

We all need to come together, as I said earlier in my passionate speech about how we need to keep the arts, and it is really important for the top to acknowledge and support us. The acting industry has these bodies; it has all this great stuff to support actors and people who work behind the scenes. We do not have it in comedy.

A body similar to Equity, specifically geared towards our industry, would be incredibly useful.

Yes, we need something separate from Equity.

Equity does not really focus on comedy, does it? It only has an element of focus on comedians.

It does not focus on live comedy. Live comedy is different.

Yes, it is such a different beast.

It is a different beast from what you see on TV. The issue with comedy is that people see “Last One Laughing” and all these TV shows, and they think that that is comedy, but it is only one aspect.

It takes so long for them to get there.

Yes, it takes a long time for them to get there. Doing live comedy is a different beast altogether. There are lots of comedians who have successful careers just doing clubs. They do not do TV; they do not do Edinburgh; they just do clubs, but there is no support for them, which is why we need that support. It is its own industry.

I know there will always be questions of where this funding would come from, but if you look at everything from grassroots comedy, those are the people who are on TV, making comedy films and stadium tours. The LCA did a study that found that live comedy brings in roughly £1 billion to the economy every year—it was likened to the fishing industry at one point—but there is no funding.

Just to follow on from that in terms of industry backing, it would be remiss of me not to mention that CIISA—the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority—is here today. Chief executive Jen Smith is sitting behind you in white. You should probably say hello at some stage. Have you ever heard of them?

I think so.

It is industry-funded to prevent bullying, harassment and discrimination, but mostly in TV, film and theatre. Do you think that approach would be helpful in comedy at all?

Yes.

Or would an expansion of CIISA’s powers or remit perhaps be useful?

If it was an expansion of powers, they would really have to understand what a different beast live comedy is. I would almost be leaning towards a different, separate part, but it sounds good.

Yes.

If nobody else has any questions for you, I want to say a massive thank you to you both—and to Aimee for providing a first at our Committee. We will be doing a call for evidence for this inquiry to ensure that we get as wide a voice and input to it as possible. We know, like you said, Kelly, that there are so many women who are experiencing things that they do not want to share because they feel that it is going to hurt their career. We heard something very similar in our inquiry on misogyny in music, but I have to say it is even worse in comedy, in terms of trying to get people to share their experiences on a public platform, because they feel that they will be penalised so heavily for it. Thank you both so much for coming today. I hope it was not as scary as you thought it was going to be.

It’s all good.

It was still a bit scary!

Well, thank you so much. Witnesses: Lu Jackson, Jessica Toomey, Kirsten Muat and Lynne Parker.

Welcome to our second panel. Many of you sat in for the first panel so will understand how we work and the sorts of questions we are interested in. As I offered to the previous panel, if there is anything you want to go into greater detail about but you do not have time today, or if you want to talk about it a little more privately, or you stand up at the end and think, “Oh, I should have said this,” please don’t worry; you can email us afterwards. For this panel we have Lynne Parker, founder and chief executive of Funny Women; Jessica Toomey, co-chair of the Live Comedy Association, which we have already heard about today; Kirsten Muat, north-west organiser of Equity; and Lu Jackson, founder and CEO at Craic, and founder and chair at CRAFT. Welcome to you all. I am going to hand straight over to Nia.

Thank you for coming to help us gather evidence. What would you say is the general picture of the challenges and barriers that women face in comedy?

Funny Women was born out of misogyny. At the end of the last century when I was working as a publicist for a comedy club, a male promoter told me to my face that he never booked any women because “women aren’t funny and there are no funny women”. I have had 24 glorious years of revenge. As I said to somebody earlier today, if I had not been on this panel I would have been chained to the railings outside because I have an awful lot to say but I will not get a chance to say it all today. Picking up on the previous discussion about the state of the industry, the fact that we have been going for 24 years is okay, but I really thought that after five years there would be no need for what we do. It is a non-profit organisation; it is largely self-funded. Over the years we have had some sponsorship. I am now into the whole funding cycle, which for a lot of us is a complete nightmare because comedy is that slightly beleaguered sector that nobody really recognises as a proper art form, but that is another discussion. It is difficult; it is difficult to carry on. I cannot really believe that there is still a need for an organisation like mine—ours; we are a community. Perhaps that is an answer in part to your question. We run the Funny Women awards. There was a lot of discussion about grassroots and entry positions for women in comedy. We now bring in about 2,000 nominations and applications every year across five different awards. We do not just focus on performance; we also focus on film, comedy writing and industry representation. It is a big deal but we cannot get funding. It exists; we have a platform and there is plenty of talent out there that wants to come into the industry. It is how we filter it through into the industry that is the critical part. Finally, I just want to pick up on the wonderful people from Frog and Bucket and Komedia; we work with both venues. Our longest-standing stand-up pro night for Funny Women Live in Brighton has been held at Komedia since 2003. I am very proud of that; I hope they are too. We have done a lot of work with Frog and Bucket. Both venues were part of an Arts Council-funded initiative called The Glitter Project – A Safe Place—another expression that keeps coming up—specifically aimed at creating a safe place for women who are interested in creative development through comedy. We completed a pilot run of it last summer in five regional locations. I think Kim picked up on a regional bias; we felt it was very important to cover as much of England as possible with our funding. Clearly we could not do Scotland, Wales and Ireland. In fact Aimee, who was on the last panel, was one of our regional producers and we had a fantastic success rate, but we now find that particular work, which was very much targeted at helping women to find their voice and to get over the misogynistic views of the industry, whether that be comedy or any other form of entertainment, is unfunded. There is a huge amount of work going on. We are not the only ones; there are a lot of people in our industry doing similar work. That gives you a very quick snapshot of where we are.

We hear your disappointment that progress has not been faster and that you are still needed, but have you noticed any change in terms of the barriers and challenges?

The landscape has changed and we now see many brilliant, successful women at “Live at the Apollo”, “Last Man Standing” and great comedy panel shows. There is now a much better percentage balance of men versus women. Like any of us in the industry we can take credit for the fact that we have all worked very hard to give that presence to women. But what we do not get is the top-down representation of those women supporting grassroots, because they are protected from that by the heavy management structures of our industry. Personally, I rail against the fact that the people who benefit the most—the big names and the management companies that make money out of the big names—are not supporting, top down, those of us who work really hard right at the bottom level. When it comes to national bodies and better representation, hopefully we can bring people together in a positive way and make the people at the top more aware of the struggles at the bottom level. That is where the misogyny exists, because it is harder as a new female comedian to get the gigs and what have you. Actually, we have a very good representation here, but someone sent me a picture of a gig in Yorkshire and there was not one woman on it. She asked me to raise it. It is on my Facebook page, so I have done that now. I have probably seen that picture thousands of times in 24 years and it would be nice to not see it. Women are pretty good at what they do. The women who do well do very well and you see them doing extremely well on telly, particularly, and what have you.

Kirsten, as a trade unionist representing the industry, what sort of barriers and challenges do you see women face?

The underlying problems women face are low pay and the precarious nature of the work. We heard before that the pay is lower than it was pre-covid and that work is more precarious. That is backed up by everything we hear from members. We recently did a survey of performers in London’s night-time economy looking at self-employed gig workers, of which comedians are a big group. We found that 98% of them said that pay had not kept up with the cost of living. When you have a group of workers who are low-paid and precarious it becomes more difficult and daunting to challenge poor behaviour. That is probably the single biggest barrier that underlies all the other barriers women face.

In other words, if there was better job security they would feel more able to come forward or to challenge some of the issues?

Yes. If there was better job security, more work available, and the work was better paid then they would feel more able to challenge that poor behaviour because they would be less reliant on that one gig.

What would be the most effective way to improve the representation of women in the industry?

I have been in comedy for nearly 25 years and it has changed massively. There are only 26 dedicated comedy clubs and on the whole they do their very best. The reality, though, is that it is comedy clubs such as Komedia that get the strong female acts because they book nine months in advance. We proactively make sure we have that diversity by booking that far in advance. The people who get an inquiry from a golf club or a sports club that says, “Oh, we want to do a comedy night in a month’s time,” are going to find it almost impossible to programme with a strong, diverse line-up. If you are a pro female comic you are booked up to a year in advance. There are loads of very funny women coming up but the problem is getting from the open mic circuit to the pro circuit. There are not enough women coming up and if you want that headliner-quality woman you have to book that far in advance; you have to be very proactive. There is something going wrong in the circuit to get the new women to pro level; that is what we need to figure out as an industry.

Are any positive steps being taken or is it purely at the whim of whoever is in charge?

The main issue is that most promoters want to be seen to be booking women so they will just put one woman on the bill when there are four spots so women are only getting 25% of the pie. The way we try to combat that sometimes internalises the misogyny. We start to put all-female bills on but then they are not paid the same rates as a normal mixed bill. It is a complex issue. The other main issue about comedy is that there has to be this almost bottom-of-the-pool circuit—pubs with rooms above—where you have the promoters who are a bit naïve and do not have these policies, but it is such an intrinsic part of our industry because you are on that level for five years before you start to be booked by the clubs. It is those five years where we are getting the drop-off—at that really informal level—and that is where it is hard to get an engagement. People watching this online will not like this, but most promoters at that level are men who are not getting booked because, for some reason or another, people do not want to work with them. They are the ones who then decide to set up their own gigs.

Do you think it might also be because men are bigger risk-takers and more willing to set up a business?

If I were to give one big takeaway to you guys today, it is that at that level, it is almost a gig for your mates, so it is men booking all the gigs. If there were more women booking gigs, which you see with women-led organisations such as Frog and Bucket and Komedia, then you would have that diversity. Even at entry level there are not enough women becoming promoters and running gigs. The real, true change will happen when as an industry we can train, fund and encourage more women to set up and book those gigs.

Basically it is the grassroots nature of it, the informality of it, the disparate nature of it, that makes it very difficult.

Yes, but it is an essential part.

Yes—it is the first barrier they have to get through.

Yes.

One thing we have always tried to do at Funny Women is to provide an element of coaching and training even without funding. We have an industry panel coming up in about two weeks at Komedia, which is aimed specifically at how to start a gig, how to go about it, and what rates to pay. There is a lot going on but even when you do it and you put it on, there is still a reluctance. There is an image around comedy and a reluctance among women to come to things themselves because they do not feel safe or because they do not think it is for them as it is a very male-fronting industry. There is something around that whole thing about men and risk. I have been married for a very long time. My husband is a musician and he goes out and gigs; he has always gone off and done it. If you are a woman with young kids you have responsibility and you have to get home late at night, it is much harder for you to set up your own gig. There are quite a lot of women running gigs and we support them, but it is more about the gender divide. Unfortunately, it is still easier for men to do certain things than it is for women because of the way our lives run.

There is a bigger thing at play, too. If you look at misogyny as a big issue downstream for the comedy industry, what is happening upstream? The comedy industry is invisible when it comes to Government funding and recognition; it is the same with key institutions. Over the last few weeks, we ran a survey for this inquiry, and almost 75% of respondents think under-investment in the comedy industry increases vulnerability to misogyny, harassment and unsafe working conditions. There are ongoing conversations. Last March I had a roundtable on comedy healthcare. I did a London business and growth roundtable in October. I have recently worked with the DCMS for a general ministerial comedy roundtable with Ian Murray. It is looking into an impact assessment on what is going on within comedy. There is no one appointed to the Creative Industries Council for the comedy industry. It is not even a drop-down on its website. It is never discussed; it is in none of its reports. Comedy is not even mentioned in the 60-page creative industries sector plan. It was not in the consultation for AI and copyright. Comedy is not integrated into NHS policy. With Arts Council it is not an art form. Comedy does not exist at the top level. When you get into reports and the various consultations, comedy does not exist. When you go further downstream, in the Arts Council review, for example, comedy was not even an option in the drop-down. If the industry wanted to participate, it had to know to tick “non-specific” or “other”. Of course, no one from comedy then contributes, because either they do not know it exists as a survey or they do not know where to apply—and even if they do, they are a bit cranky that comedy is not an art form. That means comedy cannot be tracked either. I have a tech platform called Craic. It is the operating system for the comedy industry. That is separate from the organisation I am representing today—CRAFT, the Comedy Representation and Artform Trust. Comedy does not exist as a drop-down option for UKRI. That was brought up recently at a DSIT Committee hearing by Samantha Niblett, and we are waiting to hear back. If you then look at what is happening in the private space, Amazon recently ran an incredible regional creatives fund, and comedy was not a drop-down option for that either. Because it was private, we were able, with Dr Simon Opher, Rachel Blake and Samantha Niblett, to write to its policy team and say, “Can you include comedy?” It did it, because it is a private company and it could, but I have been told by the Government that if they were to start including the word “comedy”, it would have certain ramifications for how comedy would then be funded. If you see the words music, theatre and sport in a report that has come to you as an MP or a peer, or if you see a consultation happening and the words music, theatre and sport are there, please try to add comedy to that. Please include us. If that is not happening at the top and comedy is invisible then women and other minorities, and men who face sexual assault and abuse as well, do not get a look-in. Of course, that then stifles creativity and innovation. There is no pot of money out there whereby women, for example, could take a risk to set up a comedy night; there is just nothing to go for. That is really important to note. On that, in the last few weeks the Creative Foundations Fund has allocated £96 million to 74 arts and cultural venues to help theatres, performing arts venues, galleries and grassroots music venues to address urgent infrastructure needs. There is not a single comedy-specific venue that has been awarded funding for that. I do not even know if comedy clubs are aware that they could have applied. The UK Games Fund was just funded £28 million. Craic research shows that in the last two decades comedy-specific professionals and businesses have not been awarded more than £15 million. By contrast, opera is more towards the £1 billion mark.

We have a whole section on funding.

That is fabulous; I have just covered it. That just goes back to the innovation and why women do not have funding.

We will come back to that.

If I could just finish off on your awareness of harassment and abuse, how do you think it can be tackled within the industry?

I have been doing this for a long time. I should qualify this by saying that I am not a comedian; I am a creative producer and I suppose a promoter, although I am not very keen on that word. My background is in journalism, marketing and media, so I came to it through a very strange route. I have seen a lot of life, but what has really shocked me about the world I now inhabit as a professional person—it is not a hobby; it is my life’s work; it is what I do all the time—is how many times I have heard the same stories about certain people in the industry who have abused or literally asked for sexual favours for gigs. All these things go on but the women concerned are usually too frightened to say anything. We have seen it played out with other, much bigger stories like the Russell Brands and Jimmy Saviles of this world, so maybe some of these people will get their comeuppance. But because the comedy world is apparently quite amateurish, there is a lack of control and it is a very wild west environment, the perpetrators can get away with it. There is a lack of organisations to support women coming forward, and that, I think, is why these people repeat offend. It saddens me, and from the point of view of the women who have on occasion come to me privately, I quite understand why they have often felt they could not say anything. We have always been there, but obviously all we can do is lend an ear and point them towards Get Off and other bodies. A lot of professional venues now have very good policies in place to support acts. As an industry we have to encourage all people, because it does not just happen to women; it happens to all genders. Any abuse is abhorrent and should be called out.

Jessica, do you have any thoughts on the experience and how to tackle it?

In lockdown, the Live Comedy Association explored what framework could be put in to tackle sexual harassment, and Get Off was born individually, away from us. We said, “We love it; this is perfect. This is just what our industry needs.” It is great. I have been to quite a few of its workshops and I have seen that lots of promoters do the workshops. I am very sad to see that some of the biggest, most prestigious comedy clubs in the UK have not signed up to it when it costs £750 a year and includes all compliance costs—that is nothing. I think that is the answer; it is just massively underfunded at the moment. Just to say something positive, I always thought it had to come from a cultural change, not just in comedy but in society. Until men start calling it out and correcting their behaviour, will we see real change? I have seen a big growth of that in the last year. Male comics are quite quick to call out other male comics. A lot of promoters ring me to ask, “Should I have them on this bill? I’ve heard rumours.” Sometimes it feels as if they are virtue signalling a little. Get Off is creating more awareness and understanding of it and people are learning that it is actually a legal obligation to follow these procedures. I am seeing a shift in men getting on board a bit more and policing it, which helps.

This is just the first section of our questions, and we have quite a few to get through, so if there is anything that you want to go into in greater detail, please send it through in writing afterwards. Jessica, you said there should be more women promoters from diverse backgrounds. Lynne, you reluctantly said you are a promoter. How do you become one and what do you need to become one?

I would like to confer with my fellow panellists, but in my view a promoter is simply someone who books the show and promotes it. As a creative producer your role is slightly different because you are putting the whole thing together. Aimee very clearly described in the previous session what she did in terms of curating shows. You are not just throwing names into a hat and pulling them out; you are really thinking about whether you are going to have a 50:50 bill and whether someone is going to balance it out. You have to put a marketing hat on. That is really the difference between the two roles. Promoter is often used as a slightly detrimental term. The bloke who books the pub gigs might be considered a promoter. That is my personal view; somebody else may have a completely different view of it.

If a woman wanted to set up a gig she would have to have knowledge of the types of spaces that work and basic tech knowledge. There is a massive shortage of technicians in comedy so it would be good if there was some way of building those skills among women, because to run a gig you are going to have to have basic sound and light. It is having the contacts and the access to all the talent and then it is the basics of social media marketing, how you advertise it and how you sell tickets. Then there is the business side of that. They might have to register as self-employed for the first time and pay tax. It is having the knowledge of all that, and then comes confidence. I have noticed over my time in comedy that women much prefer the academic route into comedy. They would much rather do a degree such as the one Salford University offers. They would much rather do the comedy courses than just throw themselves into a gong show. I think women would be really open to these skill improvement workshops.

That is really good; thank you.

Lu and Jessica, I want to talk a little about the LCA and CRAFT. Jessica, what are the key aims of your organisation as a national comedy body?

The Live Comedy Association focuses purely on live comedy—not TV or online—on a stage in front of a live audience. It was born in lockdown to get us recognition because we were being missed from a lot of the help. Our No. 1 goal is just to be recognised as an art form. We are also really keen to explore the arena levy. We do not expect Government handouts; we know we are probably not going to get Arts Council funding. We work really closely with the live Music Venue Trust. We have looked at its model and really think it is something that could be easily replicated in live comedy, where that pot of money could really do some good.

Lu, what are the key aims of CRAFT?

The key aims are funding and visibility, including comedy being recognised as an art form—all comedy, not just live but digital, broadcasting, streaming, visual, illustrative. I have taken that approach. A lot of people in comedy would not know who I am but the Government know who I am, as do Arts Council and the civil servants. I have been coming through these doors for the last four years. We have been working on CRAFT for the last year and there are over 30 of us involved. We believe there is an interconnectedness with comedy. If you are someone who is talent on a stage, you could also be walking into a podcast or TV studio that day. You might have a book out. You will definitely be digital. Effectively you cannot be talent any more without having a very big digital presence or at least post to some key online platforms, such as Instagram or Facebook. It is very difficult to extract live, so my approach is across the board. We focus on art form access and grassroots development, community health and wellbeing delivery, standard safeguarding and accountability, public affairs policy and representation, research, education and innovation, and launching a comedy levy to support all that. Jen Smith from CIISA is here with me today. CRAFT is a charity in formation and Jen and I are both trustees. Actually, Lynne is a comedy adviser. Samantha Niblett, Dr Simon Opher and Dame Caroline Dinenage, who cannot be here today, are all patrons of CRAFT. CIISA and CRAFT have a shared vision for a safer industry and we are in active dialogue about how they can offer support to industry businesses and professionals specifically curated to comedy industry needs. Comedy is like a square peg going into the round hole of the creative industries. Part of the issue for comedy is that people expect it to behave like music or theatre when actually it is a very different thing and it is marketed differently. For example, if you go on to Ticketmaster, you would not look under theatre to find comedy. It is the same for Netflix and Spotify. I just want to say this for those in the comedy industry who might be listening: CIISA is endorsed by the Government. Its purpose is to uphold and improve standards of behaviour across all creative industries and to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and harassment, including behaviour of a discriminatory nature. It is launching a free, confidential whistleblowing reporting service for men, women, and anyone in the creative industries. We are working with it because it is going to be able to do a lot of what we have been talking about today in terms of helping people report issues. One thing about comedy is that it is very nomadic. You might have someone from London performing in Cambridge with someone coming down from Edinburgh. Something might take place and that same person from Edinburgh who may have been the perpetrator of something might be dotting around not just on stages but maybe on TV and other things. CIISA is able to pick up on all that and I understand it can recognise patterns. We are going to put some information on CRAFT’s website so that the industry can register, get free advice and things like that.

We have a workshop with CIISA next week for the LCA membership, because we are aware that a lot of the industry does not know about the work that CIISA does. Another thing the LCA does is set up workshops for its members to broaden their knowledge of the different things we can tap into.

If I may make a final point, Arts Council is running a session specifically for the comedy industry. I requested this in October and it is going ahead on 28 May. Starting tomorrow, CRAFT will be running a survey where people can leave information for Arts Council on how they have not been able to get funding. We are trying to be very active in looking at different channels within the Government, including Treasury. We have a letter out to the Treasury at the moment, and are waiting to hear back, on why live comedy venues have not received the same 15% rates relief that pubs and live music venues have. I know Jessica is doing work with that as well, so we are trying.

You have both highlighted perfectly that you are focused on improving safety and working conditions, which is good.

Sorry, I feel my answer was far too short.

I am a big fan of short answers.

Do you want to share a little more on what you are doing to improve safety and working conditions?

Thank you. You touched on it. We tell our membership that the Live Comedy Association tries to tackle things outwardly. There is a lot of stuff we can fix inwardly ourselves but there is stuff that we cannot fix. We are reliant on Government policy and on rates relief. The Live Comedy Association wants to tackle the stuff where we have to look outwardly and reach out to guys like you.

Both organisations are doing amazing stuff but how will you increase awareness of what you are doing to the industry so that people know that you exist and can use your services?

It is hard because comedians are quite nomadic; they do their own thing.

It is an industry of individuals working in isolation.

Yes, exactly. The Live Comedy Association has a membership of only 1,500, but that is because we were born out of a time of panic, so we all pulled together. It would be very hard to get that engagement again, to get that collaborative, “We’re all in this together; we’re all going to work together; we all want the same thing.” That is going to be a struggle.

I have completely funded CRAFT to date. I have completely funded all the Comedy-on-Prescription work I am doing to integrate comedy into the NHS. Nina Gilligan of Get Off Live Comedy said to me, “I think Kiri’s put in around £100,000 of her own money for that.” Jessica, you have probably put money into LCA, right?

Yes, LCA is ridiculous.

You have women trying to help the entire industry not just for women but across the board. I am looking at multiple areas, from art form recognition to healthcare to Treasury and so on. Right now, I could definitely be putting money into it, saying, “Oh, I’m going to look great on social media,” or, “We’re going to be doing that.” My priority is to do the work and the proof will be in the pudding once we start to see some results soon, which we are. David, I was very glad to see you last week at my men’s health comedy event. Some really amazing things have just come out of that, which I cannot share today, but we just need to be persistent and keep going. I would very much welcome a cheque from the Government to help in any way. I do not know if that helps but it is just the usual channels, a lot on social media. I am not like Lynne and Jessica in that I have been in the industry for 25 years. I was in the music industry first and I came over to the comedy industry over seven years ago, so I am kind of an outsider and I am technology coming in. The industry does not necessarily do itself favours. Everyone is feeling extremely burned by the fact that comedy is not an art form and there is no funding that goes to the clubs and no rates relief. Salaries have not gone up in 10 years—for men and women.

In terms of raising awareness of your different organisations, I am very conscious of the fact that we have heard from comedians who are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. The structure of CRAFT that you just mentioned was quite white, particularly in terms of patrons, fantastic as they are. Is there more work to do to put women of colour, and their lived experiences, front and centre of this work?

It is shocking how bad it is. There are maybe two women of colour north of Birmingham. We have done everything we can. We have put together schemes of work. We have gone out to comics asking them to mentor. We have free comedy courses. We have put together all these packages to say, “Women, try comedy.” We cannot reach them. We do not know if it is higher up. We do not know if they are not being seen on TV. I do not know if it is a cultural thing that the parents do not want them to go into comedy. I do not know what it is but there is a real issue of encouraging women of colour into comedy.

We have had 21 Funny Women awards, and the stage award is the most visible. Out of 21 awards, we have had six women of colour win, so they are out there.

Yes, but not in the north for some reason.

No, they are very southern-biased. There is a big drive by broadcasters for representation and you will have seen some quite big names.

Very funny names. Sophie Duker—

Judi Love is doing really well. Thanyia Moore is one of our winners. Desiree Burch.

Fatiha El-Ghorri is hilarious.

They are all really excellent and they have all come through us at some point in their careers. They are there. It is weird because I always feel that as a female-identifying organisation our representation of colour and culture is quite good, but I agree that there is a very strong southern bias.

Since lockdown there has been an even bigger divide because no one wants to travel any more. We cannot encourage women to come up and gig in the north because of the cost of travel and trains. Likewise, people are not necessarily going to London to get the progression spots. That is holding us back a bit.

Travel is a factor.

In putting CRAFT together, it is absolutely front and centre of my mind that we have people who are young to old, and—I was going to make a joke.

That is all right; I am the oldest.

One of our trustees is under 25 and a person of colour. Aba, our head of communications, is an incredible machine of a human being. That is always something I think about.

I want to make one comment before we move on. Clearly, both organisations are doing some great stuff. It seems that this is a very isolated industry and you need to think more about how you can expand awareness. Maybe that is something to take away.

I have something I want to ask of the Committee today, if I may. I have some practical solutions for the Government. At the moment we have three MPs. I think there are 1,483 MPs and peers in total. Some 0.2% of them are consistently signing letters with me from the comedy industry to various Ministers, Secretaries of State and Departments. Would anyone on this Committee consider joining us to help create a comedy network within the MP and peer community? Could we get that to 2% or 5% of MPs and peers? Could you bring in your MP friends or allies? Having 30 people’s signatures going to the Health Secretary or the Culture Secretary is far more powerful than just Dame Caroline, Samantha Niblett and Simon Opher. That would really help us to raise the profile of what we are doing because it would then get into the news as well. By the way, I would point out there is a lot of news. The BBC, The Times and the Financial Times are really supportive of trying to help the comedy industry, but it has been a very difficult year to cut through the news and not a lot is cutting through. That is something worth commenting on as well.

No, and it has been recommended to me not to do it and that a debate in Parliament may not be that effective.

What are you saying, Kim? Do you want to—

The Live Comedy Association has been exploring an APPG for a few years but there is a cost, isn’t there?

No.

You need a sponsor to help—

It may be worth pursuing that point.

This might be a discussion for after the session. When it comes to signing public letters, I have to say that MPs take a very different view. No Front Bencher can sign it, and that includes PPSs. These public letters are decreasing in effectiveness because there are so many of them. As Kim has suggested, other avenues might actually be more effective. Where there is cross-party work as we have in our Committee, we have actually shown that we can get things done.

We have heard that Equity—I know because I used to be an Equity member—is much more focused on actors, but what work does it undertake with the comedy sector? How many comedians are part of the organisation?

Equity as a union has around 50,000 members. Those members cover acting but they also cover a whole host of other professions within the creative industries. We represent lots of people who work behind the scenes, such as stage managers, but quite a decent chunk of our membership is people who work in what we call variety. These are people such as comedians, drag artists, magicians, and people who were traditionally self-employed gigging workers with their own act. We estimate that around 20% of our members fall into the category of variety performers. Of those, around 600 members are regularly working as comedians. We keep a close eye on who is working at comedy clubs to see who of those people are members. We average around 30% density at most comedy clubs. We have quite a sizeable number of comedians within our membership. Within that, comedians are formally represented in our democratic structures in a few ways. Our governing body—the governing council—has 34 councillors. Of the 34, at least four are variety performers, so they are formally represented in that way. We also have a variety committee, which is directly elected by members and leads on all the variety work, sends motions to conference, regularly meets and runs campaigns. On that committee at the moment at least two are women comedians, so they are formally represented in our structures. We do a few different things to support comedians. We have the Comedians’ Network, and any comedian who is a member of Equity is welcome to come along to its meetings. The Comedians’ Network really leads on the work we do around comedy. It meets once every couple of months and discusses the joint issues they all face. On almost all occasions when someone is facing an issue they raise it and lots of other people in the network are facing it and they can discuss it. The Comedians’ Network is the group of people who lead on the comedy-specific stuff. We then have the Comedians’ Charter, which a number of comedy clubs around the UK have signed up to. It sets out a basic code of conduct, one part of which is pay transparency: we ask comedy clubs to be transparent about what the pay is ahead of time. The other parts all look at safety. We do not just look at safety within the club. We try to make sure there is no sexual harassment happening, but where it is happening, there are clear reporting procedures. We also look at safety getting home to make sure that people are supported to get home safely. Lots of people working in a comedy club will be working in a city they have not worked in before or they do not know well. They do not know where the bus stop or the taxi rank is. It is making sure that all these things are clearly communicated to people beforehand. The Comedians’ Charter sets out the code of conduct. We are always looking for spaces to bring comedians together as a joint group. We have a really strong presence at places where there is a comedy festival, such as Edinburgh and Leicester, and places where we know there is going to be a high concentration of comedians. For example, we set up stalls and have a drop-in area. At Edinburgh last year we set up a stall in Cowgate and anyone could come for breakfast and have a chat with us about what was going on for them. We do workshops at these places too. We call them Know Your Rights workshops and any performer who is at the festival can come along, whether they are a member or not. We talk to people about their rights as comedians. We talk them through their contractual rights, how to enforce them, how we can help enforce them, the wider work we are doing, and the importance of them all joining together as a collective. As much as we want to support people individually, the way that we are going to achieve the kind of structural change we need to see across the industry is through the industrial process and people coming together collectively.

Obviously the majority of actors are members of Equity. We hear that comedians’ pay is very low. Is the cost of joining Equity a restriction?

It is almost certainly a restriction for some people. At the moment most people pay the standard fee of £16, which gives them access to all the support and the Comedians’ Network. We also offer lots of other support, such as if people are not getting paid on time, and tax and social security support. It is definitely something we know lots of members benefit from.

Is that the insurance?

Yes. Anyone paying the full membership fee—including students and graduates—gets a full insurance package as part of the membership. That includes up to £10 million public liability insurance, which is something that a lot of self-employed gigging workers will be asked to show when they book a gig. If they are an Equity member they just have it there. Lots of other support comes with that, such as property cover. Unfortunately, it is quite common for people working in the late-night economy to have their equipment stolen when they are walking home. We cover that as part of the insurance. If someone is injured in the course of their work then we cover them as well. If they are injured in a way that means they are unable to work we cover them with some payments to make up for lost income.

Thank you for giving us a really good summary of the benefits of joining a trade union. It is always good to be reminded of that. Jess, how is your organisation funded?

The Live Comedy Association is funded by donations. On 1 April we did Live Comedy Day, which was really a PR exercise to celebrate and champion live comedy and hopefully bully you lot into recognising that live comedy is a thing. Around that, we have built a Stand Up and Give part with Crowdfunder. We have taken a small percentage of that for our running costs, but we all work on a voluntary basis apart from one part-time staff member.

Do you think that is a barrier to you being as effective as you possibly could be?

Our aim was to become a paid membership organisation, because having no money is obviously a huge barrier. I feel we have proved ourselves; I just feel the industry is still too precarious to ask comedians for money.

Because of comedians’ pay, it is too much to ask.

Yes. We feel we still have not done the job we set out to do six years ago. We just want some pride in our job. We love our jobs. We work hard and it is still not seen as a proper job. It is just not recognised as an industry or an art form. I do not feel I can ask them for membership money yet.

Lynne, what about your organisation?

We are not a membership organisation; we are a non-profit community interest company. We earn money from selling tickets like everybody else. Obviously we also have to pay for venues and acts if we put on a show. We run workshops and courses; it is very much our policy to pay everyone to do that. We may not pay top dollar, but we pay. If someone is running a workshop for us or they are facilitating an event, they get paid. We supplement a lot of our income by doing corporate work. That is something that developed out of people from corporations and companies coming to my workshops saying, “This is really great. We’d like to do this in our company,” and it evolved organically that we went from being a comedy-specific organisation to running corporate events. We have a sub-brand called Herlarious, which largely gets forgotten about because I think people know Funny Women much more, but it has not stopped us getting work that is not always about women. They see us as comedy experts and they will bring us in to put events together. We have had funding to run things with our local council, Medway. It has been brilliant. I have had three years-worth of funding to run some very workplace-specific activity called Comedy in the Community, so that is another way. I want to pick up on the whole thing about lone wolf comedy people. When you are a comedy person you are a bit of a lone wolf. Even as a producer, people do not really understand what I do, but I have made it a bit of a mission to take what I do back into the corporate workplace environment. It is hard work but I do a lot of work here with a couple of Government-led organisations that are about women in business. However, I still feel like the poor relation and that comedy is treated as a bit of a hobby: “Here comes that mad woman again.” I am, but that is fine. There is an economy that we have created ourselves within Funny Women. We get a little sponsorship every now and then but the dreaded funding model is very difficult. You have to be very resilient to keep going for funding. I have been rejected more times than I have been accepted. As someone who is neurodivergent, those applications are really hard; they are really difficult. That is another thing we do not talk about: nearly everybody in comedy is on some kind of spectrum. You sit them in front of a funding application form and they melt. It is tough. So you have that element. I do not know if that is the answer to your question.

That is fine. Lu, how is your organisation funded?

So far I have funded CRAFT myself. We are moving towards a public and private investment model and also a comedy levy; we are looking at all things. If you want my own personal stories of trying to apply for funding applications, I have been unsuccessful multiple times for comedy technology in the UK, because comedy is very much misunderstood. It is seen as a joke and it is very hard to be taken seriously. For example, I recently applied for the Women in Innovation awards and I was disqualified because the way they read my application was that I was saying I had over 50% of people involved as subcontractors. It is interesting: a few days before that, we had the roundtable with Minister Ian Murray, and Tom Walker, who created the Jonathan Pie character, said something absolutely brilliant. He said if everybody looked at the comedy industry as SMEs and entrepreneurs we would be having a completely different conversation. In comedy and the creative industries—I don’t know if you have done research on this—over 75% of people are always going to be subcontractors, individuals and small operators. Even when looking at something like technology funding for the creative industries, how can you be successful in a system that is not set up for you? Just to give you an idea, I was applying for funding for the Comedy-on-Prescription network, which includes a lot of women. Going into comedy healthcare is a really good future profession for women and others working in comedy.

Jess, to what extent is the comedy sector funded by the Government, if at all, and by other public bodies such as Arts Council England?

In lockdown we had the culture recovery fund—well, most did—and I know there is Arts Council funding for certain projects. I got some funding through the National Lottery fund and I know you got some for The Glitter Project.

I did for one project.

I was quite pleased to see in the news today that someone has received funding for an in-residence comedian at a museum in Blackpool. That sounds really exciting. There is funding but as an organisation it is very hard to get funded.

Do you find there is not that much going towards comedy as opposed to other arts?

The Live Comedy Association has been looking at any way we could get funding just to support our operational costs and the workshops. As of yet we have not been able to find any pot that we could tap into.

There is really nothing for capacity building within the sector at all.

It is very inconsistent.

It is very inconsistent. There is no Government funding. Arts Council is tough. I have had one small bit of funding from Arts Council; it did not last very long. That was for The Glitter Project, which is why we are all here today. It was about how we deal with misogyny in comedy. We would love to get more funding for that. But also, there is the industry itself. You have a lot of very large organisations in our industry making very good profits and money, and they do not invest in us either. There are a lot of big production companies. We have had some money from broadcasters. There is money. There could be a fund that everybody puts into because everyone benefits. If you are a big management company you are looking at the grassroots scene to sign your next big talent but we do not get a lot of support from them.

It is interesting you talk about that because I have read that the Edinburgh Fringe has drastically reduced the bursaries it makes available.

I think instead of—

It wasn’t their money though, was it?

No.

It was coming from somewhere else and it has been reduced this year. I help judge who gets that award; they have just had to work really hard to make sure it goes further.

What impact is this having on finding comedians from disadvantaged groups?

It is huge.

Downstream it is enormous for everyone. From the research I have done over the last few years, one of the misconceptions about comedy is that it is being funded. Last year Dr Simon Opher asked Sir Chris Bryant, when he was Culture Minister, what funding comedy was getting from Arts Council. I think it was £12 million or so, but when I actually looked at what was funded, it was theatres that had comedy within them. There was no comedy-specific professional or business that was actually being funded. When we talk about comedy industry funding, it is almost impossible to find comedy-specific industry funding. I have some stats in front of me, which I have sent to the Committee.

That is fine. If we have them, that is great. Lynne, I think you want to comment on that.

It comes back to the invisibility factor. We are very much buried under everything else. When you say you work in comedy, people lump it together with theatre and performance and actually we need to be pulled out of it. When I got my Arts Council funding—I might have said this before—on the third attempt I literally took the word comedy out of my application. I probably got rid of 90% of the times I had used the word comedy and replaced it with “health and wellbeing”, “confidence”, “development”, “creative”—just any other word—and on that third application I got it through.

From the research I have seen, basically, if it is not healthcare or an emergency like covid, comedy is not being funded for the craft in itself.

Yes.

Funding has got so hard that the Live Comedy Association last month raised £30,000, which we want to distribute this year to help the likes of Get Off. The reality is they are not getting help anywhere else, so we just have to help ourselves now.

On an individual basis we know that members find that applying for funding just feels like jumping through hoops. It is a really long, bureaucratic process. For a lot of creatives that is not how they want to spend their time. They have not entered this industry to fill out forms. It is something they really struggle with and it holds them back in what they are able to do.

When we distribute this pot, because we have such a knowledge and understanding of how it works, we hope we can make the application process much easier because they will not have to spell out the very basics of what they are actually doing.

I want to talk mostly to Kirsten and Jess about the pay issue, which we have touched on a little. Kirsten, you said that low pay was the single biggest barrier to women. What steps could be taken to overcome the gender pay equality gap in your industry?

Low pay is the barrier because it is the thing that stops people feeling able to challenge the poor practice. It means that people are working in an inherently insecure and precarious environment and that is why it is the single biggest barrier. Lots of other things, such as harassment, are a massive barrier but pay is the thing that stops people being able to challenge it as they otherwise would. In terms of how we challenge the gender pay gap, there seems to be a problem with women moving past the open mic and moving into the paid circuit. It is difficult to say what the gender pay gap within the paid circuit is because there is such a lack of transparency around pay. Generally speaking I would imagine if people are working at a comedy club then the men and women on the bill will be paid the same and gender will not come into it. Tackling the gender pay gap really is about trying to tackle whatever is stopping women entering the paid sector and especially getting those headlining gigs. Projects such as The Glitter Project are a really good part of those mentoring schemes that exist and play a really significant part in how we support women to enter that paid work. However, there is still a gender disparity in the bookings on those comedy gigs, so the gender pay gap is definitely there.

Not to disagree with Kirsten—she is absolutely right—but I am also an agent, so I see the fees that every club and promoter is paying, and they are set fees. I believe the Live Comedy Association is working with Equity on an approved code of conduct under which any gig advertised has the fee in advance, so you know it is not a bias on gender. Where the pay disparity comes from is not what they are getting paid per minute; it is the opportunity to gig. Since so few women headline, they do not get to do two gigs on a night. So many women are preferred to compere. There are lots of psychological reasons for that; as a venue, you want a nice, welcoming, warm room, and women tend to be better at that. For compering, they are not getting two gigs a night. If they are only getting 25% of the pie, they are not gigging seven nights a week. I do not think it is pay difference; it is the opportunities to work that are the issue.

That is really interesting. The question we prepared on this section is whether we need more transparency on the pay difference, but you are saying it is more important to get those bookings. It is kind of a circular thing, isn’t it? If those women are on the bill, they will get the same pay and they will get as much pay.

If more women were promoting and booking gigs, more female headliners would be booked and then those headliners could open at another gig and suddenly they are on a par with men because they are getting two gigs a night.

That makes sense. To what extent are you concerned about the current levels of statutory support for parents being a barrier for women in comedy? In our last session we heard that caring responsibilities made a huge difference and really stopped women carrying on that career progression. Do you agree with that?

Yes, I agree 100%. The vast majority of comedians are self-employed gigging workers. There can be very little employment support or the maternity rights that fully employed people would have. They are generally relying on maternity allowance, and that is just incredibly low. No one could live on their own on that money, never mind raise a child, but once they get past that and start to re-enter the workforce a lot of comedy can be booked quite last minute, especially if someone drops out. Childcare is very expensive and it is difficult to book childcare very far in advance, which is a massive barrier to women in the comedy industry.

Finding childcare in the evenings is an issue as well, because that is when most gigs happen, isn’t it?

Yes, exactly.

Does anyone else want to come in on any of these issues?

On maternity leave, there is another weird barrier, which I believe is unfounded. If a woman is off the circuit for six months, nine months or 12 months, when she comes back to work all the promoters and bookers want her to prove herself again because she has had time off. Some of the best comedians—Lindsey Santoro, Hayley Ellis—came back from maternity leave and were the best they had ever been. They had really gone up a level, but a lot of bookers and promoters say, “Well, I’ve not seen you for so long. Right, you can do a trial spot and start the climb again.”

I have spoken to some now quite well-known comedians about exactly that. They have gone off to have a baby and maybe taken a bit of a career break and they have literally had to start over. That would not happen to a male comedian. No. 1, he would probably still be out there gigging. That is not fair, because I know a lot more parental sharing goes on these days, but it is much more difficult if you take a career break as a woman performer to come back. They will start you almost from scratch again, which is terrible.

In the two surveys I ran I factored in pregnancy, parenting and paternity. I have given just an overview but I can give you better raw data if you would prefer.

Kirsten, what policy and legislative changes would you like to see to improve the working conditions of comedians, in particular looking at third-party reporting of harassment for freelancers and an extension of that?

Probably the biggest policy change that would support women comedians would be the rights that workers get under the Employment Rights Act 2025 being extended to self-employed performers including women comedians; in particular, the requirement for a venue and employer to take all steps to prevent sexual harassment. That is not something that self-employed people are currently entitled to and it would make a massive impact on them. I know in the original “Make Work Pay” document there were lots of protections for self-employed workers, such as protection against unpaid fees and late fees, which is something that happens quite a lot to our members. They go to work; they do the work in good faith, and then three months later they are still asking for their money. Making sure those kinds of protections are in place for self-employed workers as well as employees would make a massive difference to our members.

I am going to go down the line. Jessica, what are your priorities for change?

I totally agree with Kirsten, and then just education and training for all.

I would like to see the Government possibly implement a licence to be a booker. That is actually not something I thought about when I asked for this misogyny inquiry; it has come out of the data that I have received. We want to champion innovation and freedom of artistic expression and creativity, so my priority would be to create something affordable and neuro-spicy-friendly. I think you could do that via the Government website. You would log in as you would now for anything to do with tax and follow the process. “Do you know this? Have you followed that? Have you given the person you are employing some information about what is going on?” I think licensing would be good, and we should make sure it is very accessible and maybe 10 quid—a very low level—to apply.

My objective is to get funding to continue the work of the Funny Women awards. We have changed the landscape of the industry and if we do not do it my concern is that it will fall off. It would be great to have buy-in from other people in my industry to keep it running. Obviously the work we have done with The Glitter Project—it has been lovely that people have mentioned it a few times—is very close to my heart but it is all about that safe place, an informal environment out in communities where people who identify as female can come and use it. It is not just about comedy; it is about everything. Misogyny is right at the heart of that because misogyny is not only about being abused as a woman; it is about not being paid properly and treated properly. My personal goal is to create those environments going forward. I would also like to say—we had the Kiwi speech at the beginning of the last session—that I do that not just because I am a crazy, mad woman who likes doing comedy, but because we had a non-executive director called Jo Fletcher-Cross, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2022 and I had this bright idea that we would create a legacy project with her while she was still alive. Her original prognosis was six months to two years but she died last week.

I am so sorry.

She lived for nearly four years. During her lifetime we were able to bring The Glitter Project to life, so she was able to see it. If nothing else I would like to see that continue as a legacy for her.

Thank you so much, Lynne. That is a really powerful point to end on. I am so sorry for your loss.

Thank you. It is for all of us. We were all very sad to see her go.

Before I bring the session to a close, I just want to point out that on Friday we will launch the call for evidence from women working in comedy. It will run until the beginning of June, so please share it with your networks far and wide. People can submit evidence anonymously because we want to get as wide an input as possible. Thank you so much for another powerful session.