Leicester Comedy Festival and The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival 2024 launch

This Wednesday, 7th February, sees the return of the biggest comedy festival in the UK, and the only dedicated Kids’ Comedy Festival in the UK, Leicester Comedy Festival and The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival. The festivals will take place across 65+ venues in Leicester, Market Harborough, Lutterworth, Mountsorrell and Coalville and will run for the whole month, right through to 25th February.

For the first time, Leicester Comedy Festival will be launching an app where fans will be able to search for performances by name, date or genre and favourite their favourite comedians. Users will be able to search what each venue will be hosting and buy tickets in advance through the app as well as use your live location to tell you how close you are to a venue and how many minutes until a show starts, which is downloadable free through the Apple store (it’s in its pilot year so only available through Apple, with Android launching at a later date).

The famed Leicester Mercury Comedian of the Year competition will celebrate its 30th anniversary this year. Other Festival flagship events returning include Circuit Breakers, which supports new comedians breaking on to the scene, UK Pun Championships and The Silver Stand-up competition, which showcases comedians over the age of 55.

Laugh Academy returns for a week of workshops for children and young people where they can learn stand-up comedy performance which culminates in a live show.

Highlights of this year’s festival include Big Difference Company fundraiser, Live at De Montfort Hall, headlined by Flo & Joan and features Lost Voice Guy, The Card Ninja and is hosted by Myra Dubois.

For those that want to take in a few performances at the festival there are many at the shows that offer value for money including 7 shows for £7 as well as mixed bill shows by Jokes on Us, Proper Funny Comedy and Monster Comedy.

The festival will host more podcasts this year including Trusty Hogs!, Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Podcast and Lexx Education.

There will be the return of live interviews, giving audiences a chance to hear more about the lives and careers of some of the UKs best loved comedians. This year’s interviewees will be Stewart Lee, Sindhu Vee, Mark Watson and Jason Byrne.

Festival highlights include Romesh Ranganathan, Rosie Jones, Stewart Lee, Daliso Chaponda, Sophie Duker, Ross Noble, Garth Marenghi, Catherine Bohart, Connor Burns, Dan Tiernan, Sarah Keyworth and Fatiha El-Ghorri.

Some of the shows at this year’s UK Kids’ Comedy Festival include Comedy Club 4 Kids, Comedy in the Dark for Kids, Count Arthur Strong, Marcel Lucont, El Baldiniho, Jeddy Bear & Gary and Shelf.

“It’s a great privilege to be able to deliver the biggest comedy festival in the UK and this is our biggest ever. There’s something for everyone with familiar names off your favourite shows alongside newer emerging talent, really showcasing the continued strength of British comedy. As a registered charity, this is all about our community and extending our work of widening smiles across the whole of Leicestershire. We have more venues, more shows, more performers, and more promoters than ever before and we’re very grateful of the support of all our partners to deliver the festival fun once more.” Michael Harris-Wakelam, CEO

“The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival is a very unique festival, and whilst we’re delighted to have the likes of Rosie Jones, Marcel Lucont, Shelf and Olaf Falafel joining us over the course of the festival, I’d like to highlight our outreach programmes that work directly with young people, using comedy as a vehicle to improve mental health, decrease anti-social behaviour, and promote an active lifestyle.

Already this year through our work with primary schools, we have taken hundreds of children to The Y Theatre. For almost all of them it was their first time performing outside of their schools, and for most it was their first time visiting a real theatre. Laugh Academy will see 11-18 year olds put through their comedy paces, performing brand new stand-up at the end of the week, and with The Completely Made-up History of Leicester we have showcased the writing talents of year 6 students – as well as encouraging audiences to get out there and get active on the walk!” Chris Butler, Producer, The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival

“We are delighted to be back this year to celebrate comedy with our largest festival ever. We are very proud to present a programme showcasing so many styles of comedy, with very different type of events. There really is something for everyone! Since the announcement back in October, we’ve received so much support and trust from acts, venues, and the public of course. We are looking forward to seeing everyone smiling this month.”Charlotte Laidet, Festivals & Programme Director

Leicester Comedy Festival main partners are De Monfort University and Leicester City Council. The UK Kids’ Comedy Festival is sponsored by De Montfort University and NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

The Patrons of Leicester Comedy Festival are: Eshaan Akbar, Stewart Lee, Jo Brand, Sikisa, & Tony Slattery