Comedian Mark Watson is putting together a new online virtual comedy festival which will be streamed via NextUp in the New Year.

Watson has called the festival Access, because one of the things he is keen to point out is that during lockdown online comedy gigs gave fans who could not get to live shows even before the pandemic access to seeing performers in action.

Comedy streaming site NextUp has revealed some of the Edinburgh Festival shows it will be streaming this August. The biggest arts festival in the world will be beamed straight into people’s living rooms in all its glory - from dank dark caves, to the swanky big arts spaces, with 50+ shows. Edinburgh will finally be accessible to audiences who can’t make it in person. 

The events of the past twelve and a bit months, to give them a politely evasive name, have made us all think more regularly about the fragility of life than we probably would have liked to. Nothing focuses the mind than having a ‘daily death toll’ with your late afternoon glass of wine, or a tired-looking government scientist showing graphs and using phrases like ‘we anticipate many, many more fatalities’ in what used to be the ‘Escape To The Country’ slot.  

The upcoming Picnic In The Park comedy shows have been cancelled.

Dara O Briain, Josh Widdicombe, Angela Barnes, Tom Allen, Reginald D Hunter and Desiree Burch were among the acts due to appear with Watson in Marlow, Bucks on September 24 and 25.

Mark Watson announced the news on Monday morning in a series of tweets saying: "These are off. It's been so much work and it's a(nother) huge financial blow but people's safety comes first. Going to change my Twitter header and retrain as a welder.