{"id":288091,"date":"2025-07-24T14:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T14:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/288091\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T14:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T14:13:17","slug":"birmingham-comedy-festival-is-back-with-its-free-half-dayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/288091\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham Comedy Festival Is Back With Its FREE Half-Dayers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" class=\"img-fluid\" alt=\"07-Oct-Inside-No9-L-R-Steve-Pemberton-and-Reece-Shearsmith.-Credit-Marc-Brenner.jpg\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07-Oct-Inside-No9-L-R-Steve-Pemberton-and-Reece-Shearsmith.-Credit-Marc-Brenner-1024x683.jpg\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCredit: Marc Brenner<\/p>\n<p>For more than one reason, Birmingham could do with a <a href=\"https:\/\/secretbirmingham.com\/comedy-clubs-birmingham\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_self\" class=\"shortcode-outbound-link\" data-has-ga=\"true\" data-ga-type=\"click\" data-label=\"https:\/\/secretbirmingham.com\/comedy-clubs-birmingham\/\" data-action=\"text_cta_0\" data-category=\"click_internal\">laugh right now<\/a>. Thankfully, more than 90 performances\u2014featuring <strong>big names, emerging acts and the very best comedians from the West Midlands<\/strong>\u2014 are stopping by the Second City for <strong>Birmingham Comedy Festival<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>UK\u2019s second-longest-running comedy festival<\/strong> returns from <strong>Friday, October 3 to Sunday, October 12<\/strong>. Set up in 2001 to celebrate the city\u2019s often unsung comedy scene, over 12,000 people now attend every year. And it all kicks off with the prestigious Birmingham Comedy Festival <strong>Breaking Talent Award 2025<\/strong> at The Glee Club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBirmingham Comedy Festival is widely regarded as one of the UK\u2019s top independent comedy festivals, and it\u2019s especially beloved for its mix of big-name acts, rising stars, and local talent,\u201d said a popular AI platform, while a human spokesperson for the festival stated, \u201cSounds right. Couldn\u2019t have said it better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <b>What\u2019s on at Birmingham Comedy Festival?<\/b> <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18132\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"Trigger Happy TV\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/07-Oct-Trigger-Happy-TV-1.jpg\"\/>Credit: Trigger Happy TV <\/p>\n<p>This year, a series of special events celebrates iconic films and TV comedies.<strong> \u2018The Comic Strip Presents \u2026\u2019<\/strong> (Oct 4, The Glee Club) sees Robin Ince joined by members of the seminal Channel 4 series that launched the careers of a generation of British comedians. Meanwhile, <strong>\u2018Trigger Happy TV: Live\u2019<\/strong> (Oct 7, Town Hall) finds creator Dom Jolly revisiting characters and sketches to mark a quarter-century of chaos. <\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, actors\/writers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith also bring their inventive anthology TV series<strong> \u2018Inside No.9\u2019 to the stage<\/strong> (Oct 7-11, Dec 2-6, The Alexandra). Plus, the festival\u2019s<strong> annual Laurel and Hardy film screenings<\/strong> return with an animal-themed triple-bill (Oct 9, West Midlands Police Museum; Oct 4, Coventry and Oct 12, Stourbridge).<\/p>\n<p> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18133\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"Aunty Donna\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/02-Oct-Aunty-Donna.jpg\"\/>Credit: Aunty Donna <\/p>\n<p>Also among the highlights are appearances from <strong>Babatunde Al\u00e9sh\u00e9<\/strong> (Oct 4, The Alexandra), <strong>Kane Brown<\/strong> (Oct 5, Town Hall), <strong>Aunty Donna<\/strong> (Oct 2-3, Alexandra), Elliot Steel (Oct 10, The Glee Club), <strong>Emmanuel Sonubi<\/strong> (Oct 9, The Glee Club), <strong>Geoff Norcott<\/strong> (Oct 4, Town Hall), <strong>Henning Wehn<\/strong> (Oct 11, Town Hall), Chris Kent (Oct 8, The Glee Club) and Jason Byrne (Oct 10, Town Hall).<\/p>\n<p>As always, local acts feature prominently. Before recording his show for prosperity,<strong> Gary Delaney is back on home turf<\/strong> for two special warm-up performances of his hugely successful touring show Gary In Punderland (Oct 6-7, Comedy Junction), and acclaimed <strong>Brum musical double-act Good Kids<\/strong> (Oct 3, Cherry Reds) reunite for a very special one-off appearance.<\/p>\n<p> <b>What about the free half-dayers?<\/b> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-18134\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"Birmingham Comedy Festival poster\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1691\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BCF-2025-brochure-front-cover.jpg\"\/>Credit: Birmingham Comedy Festival <\/p>\n<p>Of course, we\u2019re most excited for the<strong> always-popular Birmingham Comedy Festival Free Half-Dayers<\/strong> (Part 1, Oct 5; Part 2, Oct 12). Heading to the (almost) neighbouring Cherry Reds and The Victoria for <strong>consecutive Sunday afternoons<\/strong>, acts appearing include Eric Rushton, Finlay Christie and Jamie D\u2019Souza, who test out new material. Plus, Hasan Al-Habib appears with his debut show, Death To The West (Midlands). <\/p>\n<p>Other visitors to the Free Half-Dayers include the award-winning Rob Kemp with his inventive <strong>Beetlejuice\/Beatles mash-up, Beatlesjuice;<\/strong> Andy Robinson and James Cook, recording a new episode of their <strong>pop music podcast Shooby Dooby Doo Wop<\/strong>; Tal Davies, who presents a read-through of her work-in-progress sitcom; and improv troupe Behind The Headlines with their<strong> improvised Peaky Blinders parody<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more and get tickets to Birmingham Comedy Festival, head <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bhamcomfest.co.uk\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"shortcode-outbound-link\" data-has-ga=\"true\" data-ga-type=\"click\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.bhamcomfest.co.uk\/\" data-action=\"text_cta_1\" data-tracked=\"1\" data-category=\"click_sales\" data-cp_smn_source=\"secretbirmingham\" data-cp_smn_content=\"birmingham-comedy-festival-free-half-dayers\" data-cp_smn_term=\"text_cta_1\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Marc Brenner For more than one reason, Birmingham could do with a laugh right now. Thankfully, more&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,2197,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-288091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-comedy","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114908627459742191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}