Category: Uncategorised

The Bit Before You Get To A Work in Progress (Priced Accordingly)

DATES:

Saturday 4th Feb, 11am

Sunday 5th Feb, 11am

Saturday 18th Feb, 11am

Sunday 19th Feb, 11am

Saturday 25th Feb, 11am

Sunday 26th Feb, 11am

Saturday 4th Mar, 11am

Sunday 5th Mar, 11am

Every year Angel Comedy pays 6 new comedians to go to The Edinburgh Festival.

It is one way that Angel Comedy supports newer comedians, alongside our Free Comedy Workshops, and giving more stage time to new, untested acts than any other UK venue.

The Angel Comedy Edinburgh showcase helps acts that are either doing their first ever Edinburgh festival, or need support as they might be also doing their own show or perhaps promoting their first full hour.

The Edinburgh festival can be a very, very expensive venture: Angel Comedy Founder Barry Ferns went bankrupt from putting on Edinburgh Shows. Acts can be paying over £1000 for accommodation (while also paying for rent in London), whilst taking time out from their work-life and paying for any other number of things – if they’re doing their own show in particular that includes venue hire, flyers, posters and PR.

Angel Comedy pays, publicises, and does all the admin and work for the show for the 6 new acts, and the acts take all the donations, ticket money and bucket money. The average amount they make is £2500 each.

Here are some quotes from previous participants:

Khalid Winter
“Performing on the Angel Showcase was an incredible experience which I am very grateful for. The financial support Angel offers opens up the Edinburgh festival for performers who might otherwise never get to experience it. Performing on the Angel Showcase was a great opportunity for me to develop both artistically and professionally, the support from Angel has been crucial in my development from amateur to professional artist.”

Joseph Emslie
“It carefully curates a group of comedians, all of whom are delightful, and allows us to perform to lovely audiences every day to better ourselves as comedians. This year specifically, with the rising cost of everything, the Angel Comedy Showcase was an absolute godsend, it is solely down to this gig that I was able to afford to rent a place in Edinburgh and get to enjoy the Fringe itself. I am extremely grateful for the chance to be part of this wonderful initiative and would recommend the experience to anyone who is lucky enough to be invited/included.”

Carla Gordon
“I was thrilled to take part in The Angel Comedy Edinburgh Showcase, it’s so great to not only have the opportunity to perform every day with a lovely group of comedians and become a stronger performer, but to also be paid to do so was a huge help in terms of funding and making it more accessible for me to be at the fringe festival at all! I’m really grateful for the chance to not only gig myself but also to watch the other great comedians chosen every day and I can honestly say I don’t think I’d have felt as supported or positively challenged if I hadn’t had taken part.”

Lew Fitz
“The Angel Comedy Showcase is one of the best examples of what the fringe is all about! It is a carefully curated group of comedians from a range of different backgrounds with different comedic styles all pulling together for a common cause. It is a wonderful opportunity to entertain an audience each day and improve as a comedian.
Working in comedy is much more than just the work you put in on your own stage craft, it’s your ability to adapt to different audiences, work with others, take & give instruction, interact with the industry and care about other people (which can be easy forgotten amongst the stress of Edinburgh) – the Angel Showcase gives you a delicious taste of the lot – it is a no brainer if you’re asked to do it!”

Thor Stenhaug
“I felt extremely lucky to be a part of The Angel Comedy Showcase. It provided myself and a collective of young comedians with a remarkable opportunity. We got to perform every single day to a wider audience, which developed me both as a writer and as a performer. As well as punters, the showcase attracted people from the industry. Getting to perform to producers and agents, in the midst of their busy schedules, felt invaluable – and was made possible by the support of Angel Comedy. Ticket sales from the show also meant that it was possible for us to perform at the world’s biggest arts festival, which is getting more and more expensive every year.”

Sascha LO
“The Angel Comedy Edinburgh Showcase is just one example of Angel’s generosity and willingness to cultivate new comedic talent. I was lucky to be selected to be a part of this group of truly lovely and talented people. Being able to perform alongside more experienced comedians each day taught me a lot and helped me to improve as a performer. But also, being paid by the showcase actually made the fringe a possibility for me. As a student and a young person, Angel made the fringe accessible, providing me with opportunities I never would have had otherwise. I already feel extremely lucky to be a part of the Angel community, but the fact that they offer opportunities like this just shows how special Angel is. I would definitely jump at the chance to do it again, and I would advise anyone with the opportunity to do so too.”

A rare opportunity to see comic legend Frank Skinner as he presents brand new material for the first time since his Showbiz tour which sold out venues around the country from 2019-2021, including a 5 week sell-out residency at The Garrick Theatre in London’s West End.

In Frank Skinner: Work in Progress, Frank will be developing original material in an intimate setting, at The Bill Murray in London from 4-9 April.

Get your tickets:

Monday 4th April – 6-7 pm

Tuesday 5th April – 6-7 pm

Wednesday 6th April – 6-7 pm

Thursday 7th April – 6-7 pm

Friday 8th April – 6-7 pm

Saturday 9th April – 6-7 pm

Just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who watched the first (and hopefully not the last!) show live from the Bill Murray this year. It was a brilliant show that captured the sort of warm chaos the Bill Murray engenders, and it reminded me why live comedy is such a special thing. There was a real community spirit in the venue that night – thanks for being part of that community too!

Luckily Christian wasn’t just on tweets that night, and he managed to capture some great shots in amongst his other duties. I thought I’d share some of the best ones from a night to truly remember.

We’ve also got a couple more Saturday night shows planned before we reopen the doors to the public, you can grab tickets here:

Saturday 17th April – Phil Nichol, Liz Miele, Sikisa, Cally Beaton & Fiona Ridgewell

Saturday 1st May – lineup to be announced

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Towards the end of February, Martin Willis from Objectively Funny and myself sat down to discuss putting on a couple of ‘wellness’ workshops for people in the comedy industry. As a therapist and Director of Angel Comedy, it was a way to morph my two passions in to one – and I was intrigued by Objectively Funny’s engagement with mental health during the 2019 Edinburgh Festival.

By the end of that zoom call, things had got a bit out of hand.

We agreed to put on a Festival, in a few weeks, with panels, workshops and gigs. Maybe Ruby Wax could be one of the panellists. Why not? How about Dave funding some of it? Sure, let’s ask!

(more…)

As we start building up to reopening, and look to a future where live comedy isn’t illegal, it’s also been fun to look back over our past and some of the crazy stories that come from working in a live comedy venue where comedians run it instead of bean counters people with financial acumen. We’ll be sharing a few of our favourite stories over the next few months.

I’ve always loved that Angel Comedy has been a home for comedians wherever they are in their careers, whether that’s comics at the top of their games, or people just starting off. I love looking at some of the names who were doing their first few gigs at RAW in 2017 and seeing where they are now.

I’m really bloody happy that we managed to put out the Best Medicine Festival this month, but looking at the lineups in March 2017, it looks like every month at Angel Comedy is pretty much the Comedy festival of my dreams…

We work in laughter.

We give that gift to everyone else.

How much do we give it to ourselves?

How have you found laughter and joy for yourself this last year?

(more…)

Hi, I’m Sarah. I used to do a bit of comedy back in the day; some of you might remember me holding up a psychic magazine (Chat, It’s Fate), and being snide about past lives.

Now I find myself, as one of the directors of Angel Comedy, pushing for Shamanism to be included as part of The Best Medicine Festival, our mental health week. What on earth happened?

(more…)

Although Angel Comedy has to remain closed, at Angel Towers we’ve been trying to think of ways to help comedians at a time when they can’t perform – and one way was this. By offering comedians a FREE space to teach.
For all the courses below, all the money from ticket sales will go to the comedian. In fact you’ll pay directly to them.
All of them are superb teachers and have taught with us before. And some courses are only happening as a one-off!

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As you may know, we’ve been running free weekly comedy writing sessions at The Bill Murray for over a year now. Since lockdown, we’ve transitioned to hosting them over zoom.

You can join the sessions Friday-Sunday 2PM on this link.

You can find the password for the zoom in the description of our facebook group. There you will also find more information on the instructors and have an opportunity to connect with other comedy writers.

The Angel Comedy Writing Gym is a free space for comedy writers and performers to sharpen their pencils and stretch their typing fingers through a series of exercises led by and experienced tutor.
These are for anyone in comedy writing – whatever level – to get you motivated, writing, and also to learn new comedy writing techniques from an experienced comedy professional. It’s also a chance to write with other people if you wish, and to meet with other performers and writers (meeting other writing people is often the hardest part of the job!).

The workshops, like much of what we do at Angel Comedy, are free at the point of service but there will be an opportunity to donate at the end of the session. Donations will go directly to the tutor.

Dear Friends,

We really mean it when we say we hope this message finds you well. 

In light of the latest government advice on the COVID-19 outbreak, we have decided to close The Bill Murray for an initial two weeks and likely longer, depending on how the situation develops. 

This is a tough and uncertain time for every single one of us. Yesterday was a very long day, sorting bits out, discussing with our wonderful staff, and trying to plan. And in the middle of that whirlwind of a day we also found out we won the Chortle Best London Comedy Venue! Thank you very very much to everyone who voted for us. This, combined with the conversations we’ve had with ticket-holders, acts and staff has truly brought home just how strong and loving this community is and how lucky we are to count every single one of you as part of it. 

To all of you who’ve been a part of this so far, a heartfelt thank you. We’re very proud of this little comedy club that could and thankful to our supportive, kind, enthusiastic and friendly community. 

We will be back soon, reloaded and full of beans.

But the venue is closed physically, not in spirit. We are working on ways we can keep supporting the comedy community.

We will start a nightly live stream this Sunday at 8PM. We will continue our courses on online platforms. And we will be bringing curated content from the brilliant minds of the comedians that make Angel Comedy through our social media and the community page on our website. If anyone has any ideas we’d love to hear from you. 

If you’d like to support us, please tune into our live streams. Spread the word about them. Follow us on social media. If you are in a position to do so, you can make donations here. But most importantly: stay safe, stay sane.

We hope our next email will find you even weller than ever before. In the meantime, our thoughts are with those affected by the virus,

Love,

Sarah, Barry, James, Dec, Simon, Lou, Aimee, Lucila, Siiri, Matt, Rory, Lois and the whole Angel Comedy crew

PS – Robin Ince is organising a stay at home festival

PPS – Our friends at Next Up have a whole bunch of shows to watch if you might like. With the code BILL you can get 30% off any yearly subscription.

PPPS – If you work for the NHS and are on this email list we’d like to try & speak for every single other person on this list and tell you we love you and thank you