From time to time a disgruntled promoter will write something accusing the people of Birmingham of being an apathetic bunch who’d rather stay at home than go out and have a good time. See this post from a year ago for an example.
James Cook has joined this cohort with a post titled ‘Why the Birmingham comedy scene repeatedly dies on its hole…‘. His gripes are that (and I apologise for paraphrasing):
- research shows that residents of Birmingham are the most risk averse in the country. We have a drinking culture, but not much of a ‘going out’ culture. This makes things difficult for promoters
- there are too many poor quality comedy night charging people good money to see new, unpaid acts. These nights are rubbish and will put people off ever going to a comedy night again
I don’t claim to know too much about this – I go to the occasional stand-up show, but I don’t have James’s experience of the local comedy scene and he’s not the first to have made this complaint. However, from a lay punter’s point of view, I was under the impression that if comedy’s your thing then Birmingham caters for you pretty well. We’ve got:
- the NIA and LG Arena for the big, mainstream touring shows
- Town Hall and Alexandra Theatre for other biggish touring shows
- two main stand-up venues - The Glee Club and Highlight
- other occasional shows at The Public and the MAC. Warwick Arts Centre and various places in Wolverhampton are fairly close too
- some smaller, regular nights bringing in some decent national names (Comedy Junction and Popcorn Comedy)
- there’s a proliferation of other, smaller nights at pubs and bars around over the city too
In terms of general promotion, we’ve got a dedicated comedy website and (almost?) every year the Birmingham Comedy Festival draws a ring around a load of shows happening over the space of a month and shouts about them.
That seems like a pretty healthy spread to me. Certainly a good deal more than many other towns and cities can claim. Does it constitute a ‘scene’? If not, is it just the audiences for the smaller gigs that are missing, or something else?
I’d be interested in hearing what people think. Or, seeing as how he started the discussion, leave a comment on James’s post.
