Covid-19 meant we couldn’t pay comedians £3,000+ in 2020

Henry Palmer

2020 has been a year basically devoid of stand-up comedy.

At The People’s Comedy, given our expanding to a second venue last year, we were expecting to put on 24 stand-up comedy nights. We would have raised £3,120 with combined ticket sales and donations (a safe estimate), which would have gone right back to stand-up comedians on the Bristol circuit.

We managed one stint back in-between the 2 lockdowns back in October, following government regulation of rule of 6 etc. That night at The Lion in BS5 was superb, cathartic and deeply appreciated by all, except to a lesser extent those comedians who didn’t perform as well but they’re selfish.

In 2021, we’ll be back regularly, hopefully from late winter around March time.

What The People’s Comedy stands for is providing a platform for socio-political comedy, which means comedy with a message of originality, honesty and ultimately morality. What you’ve had this past decade is stand-up comedy of the lowest common denominator, comedy that doesn’t make people think, comedy that meets up with people’s expectations for a quick, escapist chinwag before returning home to crammed, shared accommodation, paid for by precarious service sector work, peppered with mental health issues and life expectancy falling for the younger generation for the first time in history. A comedy where Russell Howard pathetically saying to Richard Branson, ‘why did you get involved in the NHS?’ is commendable and considered that of ‘good on him for asking the hard questions!’ Howard then let Richard Branson get away with saying that Virgin weren’t involved in the NHS for profitable reasons ( see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIaJ8DS-EyM ) whilst making a multi-million £ living from fuelling stigma surrounding the west country accent as the dunce. The farmer. The underclass fool.

A comedy in which Eddie Izzard unfortunately fails to outmanoeuvre the blatant baiting language of nationalist Nigel Farage (note the word patriotic isn’t used), and rather, again pathetically, just points out that Nigel Farage has a French surname so he must be a hypocrite, instead of, I dunno, giving acknowledgement of some kind of understanding where British communities are coming from, and yet still maintaining that you don’t agree with them!?

Where are the working class stand-up comedians? Where are those without formulaic idiom and material, a lot of which isn’t written for them? Where are the radical comedians? Well such comedians don’t make it into the limelight, you may respond, and that’s why you don’t see them… Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Bill Hicks, Sarah Silverman, Stewart Lee, Amy Schumer, Sarah Millican (version 1). Poop. Here’s to 2021!

Henry Palmer is a Bristol-born and bred comedian, writer and activist. He is one of the organisers and co-founders of The People's Comedy and has a book published entitled 'Voices of Bristol: Gentrification and Us' (available at all good book stores and some rubbish ones too).