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TF Box Office stalwart and emerging playwright Simon Harvey-WIlliams reflects on audiences’ seemingly limitless appetite for live and TV comedy shows…

I remember reading an article about 10 years ago stating ‘Comedy is the new rock n roll’. To be honest, around the same time almost everything (art, fashion, cookery) seemed to be given the ‘new rock n roll’ tag, but in the case of stand-up comedy it now seems truer than ever.

Working on the box office as a new season goes on sale, the one absolute certainty is whichever big comedy names are coming they’ll sell out within a matter of days - sometimes hours. Comedy is seriously big business and I’ve found it interesting to watch the career trajectory of some of the names who have appeared at both the Tobacco Factory and the Hen & Chicken venue up the road (where we also sell tickets for). Recent and up-coming performances by people such as Michael McIntyre, John Bishop and Russell Howard have had me repeating the phrase “I’m sorry we’re completely sold out” a number of times each day and in the case of Michael McIntyre the box office phone lines actually crashed due the volume of calls coming through.

I’m sure there have been plenty of social studies on the current popularity of live comedy - people wanting to laugh through hard economic times and all that - but I have to admit that on the whole I personally don’t get it. It’s probably primarily because I’m a grumpy old git and when I watch live performances I generally want them to be full of angst and strife.  I am however in a minority and a successful stand-up career is now a passport into mainstream t.v.

I am intrigued to discover which of the up-coming acts at the Tobacco Factory and Hen & Chicken will manage to cross over to have the same kind of mainstream success as the likes of John Bishop, Michael McIntyre and Russell Howard. It’s exciting to think that when you see a comedy show here, you could be seeing the big stars of tomorrow!