29th October 2025: The Full programme for the 2026 Leicester Comedy Festival is released today. The festival is the largest and longest-running comedy festival in Europe, with 700 shows.
22nd September 2025: The Leicester Comedy Festival has released selected upcoming shows for the 2026 Festival. Tickets are available now for performers including Chloe Petts, Ian Stone, Joe Kent-Walters, Ross Noble and Sara Pascoe. The full programme is scheduled for release on 28th October 2025, with hundreds of new works-in-progress as well as award-winning shows from this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
23rd August 2025: Sam Nicoresti makes history as the first transgender person to win the Edinburgh Comedy Award. Nicoresti took home Best Show for Baby Doomer, her show about life as a trans woman.
22nd August 2025: The ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards announce its award winners. Mark Forward and Phil Ellis received joint Best Show while Ayo Adenekan and Amelia Hamilton received joint Best Newcomer. A surprise injection of funds from comedian and broadcaster James Corden was also announced. The full awards listing is here.
30th July 2025: Rhod Gilbert and Patrick Monahan fund Fringe prizes. As the Edinburgh Fringe gets underway the ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards have announced that their prize pot will be supported by the comic legends. Rhod Gilbert is providing £500 for the Panel Prize while Patrick Monahan will give £250 for Best Newcomer as well as two £125 tour support slots.
3rd June 2025: The Edinburgh Fringe printed programme is released today. Available from distribution centres around the UK, the programme lists details of 3,352 shows across 265 venues, of which 1,312 (36.2%) are comedy shows.
31st March 2025: The Comedy Store Players have received the Leicester Comedy Festival’s Legend of Comedy Award. Celebrating their 40th year, the troupe that put improv comedy on the map – represented by Josie Lawrence, Lee Simpson, Neil Mullarkey, Richard Vranch and Ruth Bratt – received their accolade from the festival founder and former director Geoff Rowe. The much beloved Tony Slattery who passed way last year was a former member of the Players and a patron of the festival. Additional winners include Katie Norris for Best Show and Jodi Kamali for Best Kids Show.
14th March 2025: Chortle has announced the winners of its public vote for Best Venues. The comedy website has compiled the opinions of nearly 5000 people who voted in the 2025 Chortle Awards. The winners of the Best Comedian and Best Show polls will be announced at a ceremony on 17th March. The venue winners are listed here.
12th March 2025: The Edinburgh Fringe releasses its first batch of tickets for the 2025 festival. An initial 556 shows are revealed today with tickets available to book from edfringe.com.
4th March 2025: The Keep it Fringe Fund has announced the recipients of their 2025 Edinburgh Fringe bursaries. 180 applicants will each receive £2,500 to support their efforts to bring a show to the international arts festival. The fund, now in its third year, received 850 applications. The full list of recipients is here.
27th February 2025: The Leicester Comedy Festival has announced its 2025 award nominees. The awards, some chosen by a panel of judges and others by audience vote, will crown their winners at a ceremony on 31st March. The full list of categories and nominations are here.
23rd February 2025: Winners of the Leicester Comedy Festival flagship competitions announced. Louise Atkinson took the Leicester Comedian of the Year Award, the Silver stand-up competition winner was Samantha Day and Will BF became the 2025 UK Pun Champion.
10th February 2025: Entries have opened for the 2025 Chortle Student Comedy Award. Initial selection will be made from online submissions, with successful entrants performing at live events around the country. The final will be held at the Edinburgh Fringe where this year’s champion will receive £1,000 with £250 for the runner-up, while all finalists will be invited to perform at Latitude this summer. Information and submissions here.
5th February 2025: The Leicester Comedy Festival starts today. The largest comedy festival in Europe featuring over 700 comedy shows launches today. Info and tickets are available from comedy-festival.co.uk
16th December 2024: Chortle has launched a new bursary scheme for comedians making their debut at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe. One participant in each of five showcases will be selected to recieve Fringe registration, advertising and other support. Applications for Chortle Hotshots close on 28th December and showcases are in February.
6th December 2024: Leicester Comedy Festival has announced finalists for their flagship competitions. All the participants for Leicester Comedian of the Year, the UK Pun Championships, Silver Stand Up and their artist development project Circuit Breakers are listed here.
2nd December 2024: Applications for Sketch Off 2025 are now open. Leicester Square Theatre’s showcase for the UK’s best up and coming sketch artists is open to any sketch, character and alternative acts currently performing in the UK. Details and applications here.
30th October 2024: The Leicester Comedy Festival 2025 brochure launches today. The largest and longest-running comedy festival in Europe announces the 720 shows across 72 venues for February 2025.
24th October 2024: Stuart Laws’ Comedians Beer Mat Flipping Championship World Record attempt. Comedy’s premier sporting event will return on 31st January at the Pleasance Theatre, London. Stuart Laws, who will co-host with Sikisa, will attempt to set a new Beermat-flipping world record following his personal best performance of 50 at this years Fringe. Competitors for the event will include Phil Wang, Rosie Jones & Helen Bauer.
23rd October 2024: Leicester Comedy Festival brochure launches on 30th October. Europe’s largest comedy festival announce its official brochure release in one week which will include listings of the more than 700 shows across the historic city over the 19-day run in February 2025.
21st October 2024: Applications have opened for Circuit Breakers, Silver Stand-up and the UK Pun Championship. The annual competitions celebrate the best in emerging and established talent. Entries close on 15th November.
27th August 2024: Show Registration for the 2025 Leicester Comedy Festival is now open. Acts looking to be a part of the largest comedy festival in Europe can register here
26th August 2024: The Edinburgh Fringe Society has confirmed they issued 2.6million tickets during the 2024 Fringe. As the Fringe draws to a close, Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society confirmed “If the UK continues on an upward trajectory of cuts to arts education, and Scotland continues to decimate investment in the sector, breaking promises of support; then we are on a direct course to job losses, exclusion and boring art that is only the privilege of those who can afford to be part of it, as performers or as audiences. There is no future for the Fringe without art. There is no art without artists. Artists and the venues who host them are at the heart of this event, and there would be no Fringe without them. They take the risk of bringing work to the festival every year, and while the arts landscape is at a crossroads, we need to ensure that the Fringe, one of the greatest celebrations of arts and culture in the world, is protected for the future. As we celebrate the hundreds of thousands of people who have been moved, delighted, awed, shocked and entertained by the stories artists present across Fringe stages, it feels that now, more than ever, we must not take artists for granted; we would do so at our peril.”
24th August 2024: Biggest Prize in Comedy awarded to Colin Hoult. NextUp Comedy awarded Hoult with his cash prize and giant inflatable trophy following a vote by the channel’s subscribers.
24th August 2024: The Edinburgh Comedy Awards announced their winners. Amy Gledhill won Best Show and Joe Kent-Walters took home the Best Newcomer award, while Rob Copland won the Victoria Wood Award.
23rd August 2024: Elf Lyons has won Best Show at the Jones Bootmakers (ISH) Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Abby Wambaugh won Best Newcomer, while the Panel Prize was shared between Alex Petty, Best in Class, Dion Owen, Elaine Robertson and Funny Women Glitter Project.
22nd August 2024: Alana Jackson wins So You Think You’re Funny. The Glaswegian comedian has marked herself out as one to watch after beating 596 contestants to the coveted title.
21st August 2024: The shortlist of contenders for the Jones Bootmakers (ISH) Edinburgh Comedy Awards has been announced. A winners ceremony on 23rd August will announce their choice of Best Show, Best Newcomer and Panel Prize winner.
16th August 2024: The Jones Bootmakers (ISH) Edinburgh Comedy Awards has announced its long-listed Best Show and Best Newcomer nominees. The Awards which began last year in response to the Edinburgh Comedy Awards loss of sponsorship has announced its nominees, selected by a broad panel of volunteers including artists and enthusiasts. The shortlist will be announced on 21st August.
11th August 2024: NextUp Comedy reveals the 20 nominees for The Biggest Award in Comedy. The subscription channel which live-streams selected Fringe shows will award its giant inflatable trophy to the winner, as voted by its subscribers, at an event on 24th August.
2nd August 2024: The Edinburgh Fringe begins today. With almost 4000 shows, some having had discounted previews for up to three days before, the largest arts festival in the world has officially opened and will run until Monday 26th August.
14th July 2024: Survey results suggest live comedy is worth £1 billion to UK economy. The study by the Live Comedy Association, and the Centre for Comedy Studies Research found that participants turnover is worth £82million, although revenue streams could be up to 12 times as high.
14th June 2024: Latitude and Barclaycard have dropped their sponsorship deal in response to artists boycott. Comedians including Sophie Duker, Alexandra Haddow and Pappy’s as well as music acts, pulled out of the festival over the deal with Barclays in protest at the bank’s links to defence companies supplying Israel.
12th June 2024: The Edinburgh Fringe launches its official programme brochure today. The publication is now available from outlets across the country while a digital version is available online. Acts submitted after the deadline as well as changes to the published schedule can be viewed on edfringe.com.
22nd May 2024: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society announces 180 recipients of the 2024 Keep it Fringe fund. The fund received 749 applications, which were reviewed by 30 independent assessors. The successful applicants each receive a bursary of £2500.
9th May 2024: Nearly 1,600 shows added for Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024. A new batch of 1,590 shows is revealed at noon today, taking the total shows so far to 3,237 ahead of the official programme launch on 12th June.
8th May 2024: The ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards is the Jones Bootmakers (ISH) Edinburgh Comedy Awards for 2024. At a London launch event today the ISH Awards announced a sponsorship deal with Jones Bootmakers who will provide three prizes of £5000 each at this year’s awards.
26th April 2024: The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has announced the return of FringeMakers. The online partnership with Crowdfunder is available to all performers, is free for artists to be included, and audiences can easily browse and donate to support different Fringe artists and projects in addition to earning exclusive rewards.
14th April 2024: The Musical Comedy Awards crown Tom Towelling as MCA 2024 Winner. Luke Nixon as Jim Midge took third place while Anna Hale won second place and audience favourite.
9th April 2024: Holly Ludlow wins West End New Act of the Year 2024. Runner up was Prateek Kohli and an audience vote put Tasmin Sarkany in third place.
6th April 2024: The Glasgow International Comedy Festival has reported record-breaking sales. The festival sold over 50,000 tickets for its 560 shows making it the most successful year in its 20-year history.
5th April 2024: Earlybird passes released for Oxford Comedy Festival. The festival runs from 28th June to 28th July and includes more than 50 shows.
4th April 2024: More than 1,300 shows added for Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024. A new batch of shows to be staged at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe has been revealed. All shows will be available to view on edfringe.com from 12:00 today.
3rd April 2024: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society announces two further years of the UK Keep it Fringe fund for artists. The fund, launched in 2023, provides over 300 bursaries of £2,500 each for artists to bring their work to the Fringe.
21st March 2024: Greg Davies releases dates for his 2025 UK tour ‘Full Fat Legend‘. The tour will be his first since ‘You Magnificent Beast‘ in 2018.
21st March 2024: Star of stage and screen Brian Cox named as the newest Patron of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The Succession star joins fellow Patron Eddie Izzard and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’s honorary President, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as ambassadors for the festival.
14th March 2024: Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society introduces Apple and Google Wallet ticketing functionality for Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2024
18th March 2024: The Leicester Comedy Festival announced its annual award winners. Joe Kent-Walters won Best Show for ‘An Audience With Frankie Monroe’, while Jenny Eclair took home this year’s Legend of Comedy Award. Awards in full.
THE COMEDY NERD 