Up and coming acts set to tickle your funny bone
THE popular comedy night at the Burscough Arts Centre will return on Friday, November 9, with two upand-coming acts set for national stardom.
Featuring Dan Nightingale and Stephen Bailey, who between them have appeared on Coronation Street, Love Island: The Morning After and Live At The Comedy Store this year alone, will be appearing for an intimate Burscough show.
Freddy Quinne, event organiser, said: “The gig has been running on and off for about six years.
“It runs every other month. We’ve had shows in February, April, June, September, then we’ve got one in November and a Christmas special.
“It’s a 90-seater, it’s not a big room at all, and yet we consistently get the best acts in the country.”
Freddy makes use of his contacts and inside knowledge of the industry to bring talent to the Arts Centre.
He said: “I’m a stand-up myself and I’ve been doing comedy for about 10 years so I’m quite well connected.
“The reason I live in Burscough as a comedian, apart from the fact that it’s a very nice place to live, is because transport wise Burscough is almost unique in its qualities.
“You can be at any major motorway in about ten minutes, it’s less than an hour away from Manchester, it’s 40-odd minutes from Liverpool, there’s two train stations.
“What that means is that we utilise what we call in the business ‘doubles’, so somebody might be opening up at The Comedy Store, then they’ll come and close our gig.
“It only takes them 50 minutes to get there and they’re in the area anyway.
“They wouldn’t come up from London just for 90 people in Burscough, but if we can utilise Burscough’s location and my knowledge of where people are then it leads to some fantastic lineups.”
The comedy nights boast an illustrious alumni and have some highly promising acts booked in for the winter.
“This year we’ve had Adam Rowe who is a fantastic comedian who won Dave’s best joke at the Edinburgh Fringe literally two months after we’d booked him.
“We had Scott Bennett closing another show who’s done tour support for people like Rob Brydon and Michael McIntyre.
“We’ve had an absolutely fantastic character act called Troy Hawke who absolutely blew the roof of the place.”
“Then in November we’ve got Stephen Bailey who has about a million TV credits, he has one of those faces that you go ‘I think I’ve seen him’ because he’s been on so much.
“He was on The Apprentice: You’re Fired last week. He’s someone who’s breaking into that cusp of being a household name.
“In December we’ve got a special lineup of acts who are absolutely bulletproof, we’ve got a lad called Brennan Reece who’s going to be on the next series of Live At The Apollo.”
Freddy believes that the events are setting a platform for the future of British comedy to prosper, and emphasised how big an opportunity this is for the people of Burscough to see some rising stars.
“The thing is that’s the level that we operate.
“You’ll be seeing people who in a year’s time might be really big names.
“We can’t bring Jimmy Carr to Burscough, we can’t bring John Bishop to Burscough.
“But we can bring the next Jason Manford or the next Kevin Bridges.
“That’s what we’re trying to do and that’s what people have really bought into, because it’s been incredibly successful.
“We’ve sold out every single show that we’ve put on, because I think people really see the value of, for just £10, having an experience with top class comedians.
“These are the same comedians that might be on at The Frog And Bucket or The Comedy Store.
“Bbut whereas you might be paying £20 a ticket to watch with 400 people, you’re paying £10 a ticket and you’re never more than 12ft from the stage.
“It’s great for the community because they get top class comedy right on their doorstep.”