'It would be a pity to lose sight of how accessible comedy can be'

Mark Watson is putting together a major online comedy festival spanning the whole month of January.

The Access Festival was inspired by the remote gigs of lockdown, and the comic likens it to his marathon 24-hour-plus gigs, calling it ‘an explosion of collaboration, creativity and stupidity – but spread over a month’.

It will feature a mix of comedians taking part from their own homes plus live-streamed shows from the Monkey Barrel in Edinburgh, Belly Laughs gigs in Bristol, and the London studios of NextUp, which will be providing the streaming platform.

As well as Watson – and the No More Jockeys gameshow he plays with pals Alex Horne and Tim Key – the festival will feature contributions from  Kiri Pritchard-McLean and her Covid Arms virtual club, Sarah Keyworth, John Robertson, Bilal Zafar, Laura Lexx, Aaron Simmons ‘and quite a lot more’.

The full line-up, comprising at least 20 shows, will be revealed next Friday – with tickets sold only as a full season pass.

Watson told Chortle: ‘One of the few upsides of the lockdown era (which was, generally speaking, a bit of downer) was that we - the comedians who went online - found a whole new audience of people who'd previously been left out of live comedy - either because of health, or financial reasons, or childcare issues, or living in stupid parts of the country/world for comedy-watching.

‘That audience was pretty thrilled by the amount of live entertainment that became available online, and many of those people were then very disappointed by how quickly much of the industry said "great, we never have to do Zoom gigs again" and moved on.

‘Of course, performers' desire to get back into theatres and comedy clubs was understandable, but it doesn't need to be quite so stark an either/or situation. We can have both at the same time; we can still be streaming interesting work from our kitchens, and also including the online crowd in live shows.

‘Comedy ought to be for everyone and, during the pandemic, there were glimpses of how all-encompassing its community can be. It would be a pity to lose sight of that now.’

The festival, which will be produced by his company, Impatient, in collaboration with NextUp.

Published: 2 Dec 2022