James Cook has joined this cohort with a post titled ‘Why the Birmingham comedy scene repeatedly dies on its hole…‘. His gripes are that (and I apologise for paraphrasing):

• research shows that residents of Birmingham are the most risk averse in the country. We have a drinking culture, but not much of a ‘going out’ culture. This makes things difficult for promoters
• there are too many poor quality comedy night charging people good money to see new, unpaid acts. These nights are rubbish and will put people off ever going to a comedy night again

I don’t claim to know too much about this – I go to the occasional stand-up show, but I don’t have James’s experience of the local comedy scene and he’s not the first to have made this complaint. However, from a lay punter’s point of view, I was under the impression that if comedy’s your thing then Birmingham caters for you pretty well. We’ve got:

• the NIA and LG Arena for the big, mainstream touring shows
• Town Hall and Alexandra Theatre for other biggish touring shows
• two main stand-up venues – The Glee Club and Highlight
• other occasional shows at The Public and the MAC. Warwick Arts Centre and various places in Wolverhampton are fairly close too
• some smaller, regular nights bringing in some decent national names (Comedy Junction and Popcorn Comedy)
• there’s a proliferation of other, smaller nights at pubs and bars around over the city too

In terms of general promotion, we’ve got a dedicated comedy website and (almost?) every year the Birmingham Comedy Festival draws a ring around a load of shows happening over the space of a month and shouts about them.

That seems like a pretty healthy spread to me. Certainly a good deal more than many other towns and cities can claim. Does it constitute a ‘scene’? If not, is it just the audiences for the smaller gigs that are missing, or something else?

I’d be interested in hearing what people think. Or, seeing as how he started the discussion, leave a comment on James’s post.