Big Difference Company, the registered charity which produces the annual Leicester Comedy Festival, has been awarded £105,000 as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary has announced today.  The funding will help sustain the festival through the current crisis and will also allow the charity to work with more comedians who have had their work massively reduced over recent months. 

Big Difference is one of the cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support. The investment has been announced today as part of the second round of the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England.

Big Difference Company has produced Leicester Comedy Festival every February since 1994 and the event has grown into the biggest and longest running comedy festival in the UK.  Leicester Comedy Festival 2020 was one of the last national live festivals to take place before the pandemic hit England and the lockdown process began.  This funding will ensure the 2021 festival will take place in February and help support the future of the charity and festival.  

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said “this funding is a vital boost for the theatres, music venues, museums and cultural organisations that form the soul of our nation. It will protect these special places, save jobs and help the culture sector’s recovery."

Geoff Rowe, Founding Director of Leicester Comedy Festival said “we are delighted with this support and we are indebted to Arts Council England and DCMS for the Culture Recovery grant which will help secure a future for the festival and our community programme.  Leicester Comedy Festival has grown so much since it started in 1994 and we remain committed to the event being a real celebration of British comedy.  We are now actively planning for February 2021 when we will present the festival, alongside The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival which has already made an impact since we set it up 2 years ago.”

Leicester Comedy Festival 2021, and The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival, will be launched on 4th November and further details will be available from www.comedy-festival.co.uk

Gag Reflex, Manchester’s leading comedy and variety agency, has been awarded £74,281as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary has announced today.  

Gag Reflex is one of 588 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support – with £76 million of investment announced today. This follows £257 million awarded earlier in the week to 1,385 organisations, also from the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks. 

Gag Reflex was established in 2007 to nurture and develop comedy talent in Greater Manchester and has grown to represent and produce tours for a diverse range of artists from around the world. Being unable to produce tours since lockdown has naturally enforced a shift in focus for the Gag Reflex. It has been the motivation to create new ways to entertain socially-distanced audiences who are missing live entertainment. At the same time the company have also been adding an exciting range of new clients to their roster in anticipation of the return to normality post COVID. 

Gag Reflex founder and director, Lee Martin, said: “The enforced closure of live entertainment venues has meant a cessation of the majority of revenue streams for us and everyone else in the Arts. This funding will allow us to continue to support our staff, freelancers and the talented artists with whom we work. It will also help us to look forward to a creative and successful future investing in this wonderful industry.”

The Guardian has reported that The Comedy Store, with branches in London and Manchester, will receive £964,252. Its founder Don Ward said: “When we had to close both venues due to the coronavirus and all the relative problems it brought to the understandably enforced closure. The investment will ensure that we will be back to entertain live audiences as soon as it is safe to do so, protecting livelihoods and the art form of comedy itself.”

There is more data on all the grants here.