The nominees for Leicester Comedy Festival 2024 Awards have been announced now that Leicester Comedy Festival and The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival have wrapped for 2024. This year’s festivities saw the highest ever ticket sales – with over 22388 tickets sold directly from the festival’s box office, equating to over a 10 percent increase in sales from 2023.
Acts and events nominated for this year’s awards, include shows from both The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival and Leicester Comedy Festival include Josh Glanc and Alex Camp for Best Variety Show, Jake Lambert and Susie McCabe for Best New Show, Jodie Mitchell, and Hannah Platt for Best Debut Show, Mr Sleepybum by Jody Kamali and Olaf Falafel’s Stupidest Super Stupid Show (yet) for Best Kids Show, Thanyia Moore and Milo Edwards for Best Show.
The awards ceremony, which is hosted in partnership with De Montfort University, will take place on 18th March in Leicester, where the Legend of Comedy award will also be announced, recognising the outstanding achievement to British Comedy. Previous winners to the Legend of Comedy award include the late Barry Cryer and Victoria Wood as well as Sir Lenny Henry, Johnny Vegas, Stewart Lee and Jo Brand. The festival awards also highlight the people and venues behind the scenes, with nominations for Best New, Large and Small Venues and Promoters being announced today too. (The full list of nominees is below)
‘It’s been another excellent year for our festivals and the strength and variety of shows on offer is clear to see from this list of nominees. It’s 3 weeks of laughter across Leicestershire and it’s only possible thanks to all of our community who get behind our charity each year and help us to produce the festivals. The money generated from the festivals goes in to supporting further projects that benefit our community initiatives, workshops, discussions and more. We look forward to celebrating the success of this year’s festivals with all the nominees later this month.’ Michael Harris-Wakelam CEO, Big Difference Company
Leicester Comedy Festival 2024 featured 1026 performances with 754 shows throughout the month, in over 65 venues across Leicester and Leicestershire, with 45,000 minutes watched on NextUp. This year, there were 10 shows live streamed, including the UK Pun Championships, Best in Class and Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year. For the first time, there was an app that enabled audiences to find and book shows.
There were a huge number of sell out shows this festival, including Angela Barnes, Sarah Keyworth, Abi Clarke, Daniel Foxx, Mark Watson, Ania Magliano, Seann Walsh, Sam Campbell, Rachel Fairburn, Nick Helm, Olga Koch, Sophie Duker, Helen Bauer and Catherine Bohart.
Kev Mud won the UK Pun Championships, Kevin Daniel won The Silver Stand Up competition and Eva Bindeman was crowned Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year.
‘We are incredibly proud of this year’s festival, the largest one ever, which once again celebrated British comedy in all its forms. The last 3 weeks have seen Leicester buzzing with comedians from all over the country, new and established, trying material for the first time or touring big shows. It’s been extremely rewarding to see people having a good time, laughing, going from venue to venue and enjoying the festivals. We are so thankful to our venues, promoters, staff, performers, volunteers and partners who all play a major part in making Leicester Comedy Festival and The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival 2024 so successful.
We are thrilled to announce the nominees of our annual awards, which once again demonstrates the range and diversity of acts that perform at our festivals. We’re looking forward to the ceremony later this month and announcing the winners.’ Charlotte Laidet Festivals & Programme Director
The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival 2024, featured over 50 events in 27 venues. Comedians & Shows at The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival included: Marcel Lucont, Comedy in the Dark for Kids, Rosie Jones, The Mighty Kids Beatbox Comedy Show Strikes Back, Jeddy Bear and Gary’s Chemistry of Chaos, Count Arthur Strong, The Lovely Boys, and SHELF. The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival engaged 14 schools, over 550 primary school children for Loving Laughing. It delivered eight joke spots which attracted 200 children. Sixteen 11-18 year olds attended workshops to learn how to write and perform jokes as part of Laugh Academy.
‘We are so lucky to be able to host The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival to bring the highest quality children & family comedians to Leicestershire for 19 days of fun. This year was no exception – and we’re incredibly proud to say that already this year was our best attended festival yet, with thousands of families seeing shows, taking part and laughing together. We also gave hundreds of children and young people their first taste of performing comedy through our Loving Laughing, Joke Spot and Laugh Academy programmes. Most importantly though, we got to embarrass PLENTY of dads. The festival wouldn’t be possible without the support of our acts, venues, promoters, volunteers, facilitators, partners, community groups and audiences and we continue to be so thankful for their contributions. We can’t wait to see what next year brings!’ Chris Butler, Producer, The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival,
The full list of awards nominations are below:
- Best Small Venue
- Firebug
- King Richard III Pub
- Peter Pizzeria
- The Big Difference
- The Black Horse
- Best Large Venue
- Curve Theatre
- De Montfort Hall
- Market Hall
- Mountsorrel Memorial Centre
- The Y theatre
- Wycliffe Rooms
- Best New Venue
- East Street Lanes
- James Café Bistro
- Phoenix Terrace Room
- Real Ale Classroom
- Best Kids Show
- Jeddy Bear & Gary’s Chemistry of Chaos
- Mr Sleepybum by Jody Kamali
- Olaf Falafel’s Stupidest Super Stupid Show (Yet)
- Strictly Barking
- The Mighty Kids Beatbox Comedy Show
- Best Variety Show
- Alex Camp: Songs About Love & Food
- Bad Clowns: Hostage
- David Eagle: Flying Solo
- Lil Wenker: Bangtail
- Josh Glanc: Collections
- The Burlesque Imposter
- The Last Gun: Will BF
- The Totally Improvised Musical
- Best New Show
- George Lewis: Men Behaving Dadly
- Jake Lambert: The Sunshine Kid (Work in Progress)
- James Trickey: Don’t Count On Me (WIP)
- Luke Rollason: Luke Rollason, Let Down Your Hair
- Rich Wilson: The Train, The Story and The Bump
- Susie McCabe: Work in Progress
- Best Debut Show
- Hannah Platt: Defence Mechanism
- Jack Skipper: Work in Progress
- Jodie Mitchell: Becoming John Travulva
- Kathy Maniura: Objectified
- Kayleigh Jones: I Fed My Day To A Pelican
- Kev Mud: Homeless Sex Biscuit
- Best Show
- Daniel Foxx: Villain
- Darran Griffiths: Inconceivable
- Joe Kent-Walters: An Audience With Frankie Monroe
- Michael Brunström: Copernicus Now
- Milo Edwards: Sentimental
- Thanyia Moore: August
- Audience Choice
- 14/48 Takeover – performance
- Dan Driver: The Sound of Muzak
- Everyday I’m Jesterin’
- Jon Hipkiss – An Evening You Won’t Regret Unless You Don’t Like It
- Laura Patch: Glorious
- Nick Helm: Masterworks in Progress 2024
- Best Poster
- Carol’s Cost of Living Craft Show
- Fine, Fine, Everything is Fine: Richard Todd
- Free Range: Geoff Alderman
- Lil Wenker is Bangtail
- A Comedian Dressed like a Wizard* Answers a Ringing Phone, Describes What is Happening for Fifty-Two Minutes, And Then Leaves: Rob Kemp
- Liberty Award
- Festival Hub
- Popcorn Funnies in Association with BFI Network
- Lukewarm Losers
- Weirdos Comedy Weekender
- Best Promoter
- Foxy Comedy
- Jokes On Us
- Just The Tonic
- Late Stage
- Monster Comedy
- TripleCeePee
- Tracey Miller Community Award
- All In Leicester
- Better Points
- Kate Frow of Foxton Primary School
- Leicester Libraries
- Menphys
- Student of the Year
- Amisha Brandreth
- Caitlin Harries
- Ellie Skinner
- Fengjiao Li
- Liv Mills
- Molly Wilby
- Peter Wan
- Rhian Hiorns
- Business Contribution
- Hotel Brooklyn Leicester
- Howes Percival LLP
- Menphys
- Phoenix Cinema and Art Centre
- Soft Touch Arts & Jerroms Miller Specialist Tax
- The Beautiful Pubs Collective
- TT Country Events
- Warning Zone Life Skills
- Contribution to Leicester Comedy Festival 24
- 14/48
- Ben Robinson
- Reflections Design – for Laughter Pop
- Peril Design / Paul Banks
