HOW ANGEL COMEDY STARTED
Angel Comedy was founded by comedians Barry Ferns and Linus Lee in 2010.
Barry and Linus were soon joined by Sarah Pearce and Katerina Vrana later in that year.
Simon Goss also signed up as the token non-comedian.
By 2013 Linus had moved back to Australia to pursue graphic design, and Katerina returned to Greece to become a famous comedian, first in Greece (and then worldwide)
At that point, Angel Comedy was 7 nights a week, running out of The Camden Head in Angel, Islington, and was hosting some of the most famous acts in the country.
Despite having expanded to 9 shows a week, they all had queues around the block, and we were turning away hundreds of people every night.
In 2016, Barry and Sarah decided to run their own venue and along with the then Bar Manager at The Camden Head, Rachel Warnes, they started looking at pubs to take over to become a comedy venue. They discovered The Mucky Pup around the corner that was available for leasing (fun fact about the Mucky Pup, it used to have a famous jukebox that the old Landlord took with him – in fact, whilst we were refurbishing, and before he became a regular performer here, Stewart Lee came down to have a listen to it, and was a little sad it was gone)
MOVING INTO THE BILL MURRAY
In 2016, Dec Munro asked to be part of the venue set up by Angel Comedy founders, Barry and Sarah.
Dec was already a successful Director of comedy after starting his comedy career as part of Barry Ferns’ 2008 Edinburgh Sketch Show “This Sketch Show Belongs to Lionel Richie 2” at The Gilded Balloon.
And it felt like a good fit.
And so Barry, Sarah, Rachel and Dec took over the lease of The Mucky Pup – soon to be renamed “The Bill Murray” – alongside the original Angel Comedy Club at The Camden Head that was still running around the corner.
Today – Angel Comedy puts on around 40 shows a week, every week, with brand new acts and world famous stars and everyone in between.
It does free shows, affordable shows, free workshops for comedians, and pays more than 50 different comedians a week.
ALL ABOUT ANGEL COMEDY
What is Angel Comedy?
Angel Comedy is a London comedy club. We’ve been going since 2010, and have grown from a once a week gig into a seven nights a week “Comedy Institution” (according to Time Out).
Astonishingly, we’ve been lucky enough to have some of the true legends of comedy work up shows with us, whether that’s Eddie Izzard building his final world tour with us over 36 dates, James Acaster building “COLD LASAGNE HATE MYSELF”, or Daniel Kitson, Mae Martin, Stewart Lee, Maria Bamford, Nish Kumar, Bridget Christie, Tim Key or Jamali Maddix working on multiple shows. It’s been great being able to offer people the chance to see some of their comedy heroes in such an intimate space. And we’ve done this without abandoning our wildly popular mixed bill shows. These are a great place to see the stars of tomorrow, handpicked to give you an astonishing night. We support comedians throughout their journey – we teach comedy as well, and many comics have had their very first gig with us.
In fact, we put on 20 – 30 shows in an average week, and end up putting on more than 6,000 comedians a year. It’s a staggering amount.
How is this possible? Well, we are also people: a team of comedy loving people who seem to believe in this crazy dream, plus a glorious community of comedy lovers and performers, without whom we would not be here.
Where is here?
Here is actually two places:
THE CAMDEN HEAD
We started out at the Camden Head in Islington, where we’re still going strong, seven nights a week. It’s one of the best loved comedy gigs in London, and consistently rated a top-ten London night out on Tripadvisor. And it’s famously FREE. Every night, always. FREE.
THE BILL MURRAY
We’re also just around the corner at our very own venue, the Bill Murray. Here we run a more eclectic programme, as well as digging deeper into our comedy ambitions. The Bill Murray is a base for comedy courses and community projects, and a place for comedians to work, rehearse and hang out. It’s also a lovely pub.
A pub? How did you manage to buy a pub?
It’s a long and beautiful story. And it’s all here on our Kickstarter page.
But what is Angel Comedy about?
I see what you did there. Well, we’re about giving comedians and audiences a fair deal, exploring how comedy can benefit our local community, and generally immersing ourselves in funny.
In our heads, that means free comedy gigs, that are well run and high quality. It also means providing a stage for the weird, the wonderful, the well established, the, er, can’t think of any other W’s, but you get the picture. We’re comedians who love comedy. We want to support other comedians on their journey. We want to make that journey viable, which means creating accessible space where artists can meet, create, rehearse and perform. Where they can learn. Where they’ll be supported. And a place where we can develop projects with schools, care homes and charities, and play an active part in the life of our neighbourhood. Well, you did ask.