Next Event – A Panel on Feminist Humour
Tuesday 15th July 2014, 6pm
Nunn Hall, Institute of Education London
The next London Comedy Forum will be on the theme of Feminist Humour, curated by Hannah Ballou, and features four feminist humour practitioners – Bryony Kimmings, Kate Smurthwaite, Vikki Stone and Hannah Ballou herself will be speaking.
Kate Smurthwaite is a stand-up comedian, pundit, and political activist. She has appeared on Question Time, and is a regular on TV and radio. She is known for her annual political one-woman show, The News at Kate, performed since 2009 at the Edinburgh Fringe. In 2013 she won a Three Week’s Editor’s Choice Award. Kate is a writer for the BBC Three political comedy show The Revolution Will Be Televised and the UK’s leading political satire show Have I Got News For You? She also writes for publications from Cosmopolitan to both the Guardian and the Independent and is the Vice Chair and Media Spokesperson for campaign group Abortion Rights UK.
Listen to her Radio 4 Four Thought programme about sexism and comedy here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxmx5
http://katesmurthwaite.co.uk/
Bryony Kimmings is a performance artist who creates full-length theatre shows, cabaret works, homemade music, sound installations and documentary films. Her most recent show Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model (winner Fringe First award and Arches Brick award 2013) is an audacious, provocative protest against flagrant global attempts to sexualise and commodify childhood for profit. Kimmings and her niece Taylor, nine, decided to play the global tween machine at its own game by inventing dinosaur-loving, bike riding, tuna pasta-eating, alternative pop star Catherine Bennett.
Watch a video about the project here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w98iARBxJQ4
http://www.bryonykimmings.com/
Vikki Stone Recently described as ‘the bastard love-child of Tim Minchin and Victoria Wood’ (Scotland On Sunday) Vikki Stone’s unique comedy style has made her one of the fastest rising stars of British comedy. Her shows at The Edinburgh Festival have played to sell-out houses for three consecutive years, and has been listed by The Independent as their Top Ten To See In Edinburgh, and as The Observer’s Top Five Edinburgh Acts. Her TV appearances include ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here …Now (ITV2) ‘That Sunday Night Show’ and ‘This Morning’ (ITV1) ‘Secret Service’ (BBC1) ‘The Hilary Devey Story’ (BBC2) ‘Britain in Bed’ ‘and Most Annoying’ (BBC3), ‘Flash Prank’ (MTV),”Greatest Stand Up Comedians” (Channel 5) and “Funniest Moments Of 2013” (Channel 4). She has also been heard on The Now Show (Radio 4), 4 Extra Stands Up and Live At The Stand (Radio 4 Extra), as well as having her own show on comedy radio station Fubar Radio. Vikki is also the voice of BBC3’s Impractical Jokers. Vikki’s new show ‘Instrumental’ will tour UK theatres in the Autumn this year, straight after it’s Edinburgh Festival run.
Watch her failed attempt to write a song for the female urination device SheWee here:
http://www.vikkistone.com/
Hannah Ballou is a comic performance artist and visiting lecturer at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed her work internationally in such venues as New York’s Slipper Room, Battersea Arts Centre, Barbican Centre, Leicester Square Theatre, Volupte Lounge, the London Burlesque Festival and the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. She produced and starred in The Lambchop Magoo Show at Proud Cabaret. She contributes to Comedy Studies journal. Her recent series of performance research, hoo:ha attempts to manifest a dissonance between funniness and sexiness with the female comic body in order to challenge heteronormative and patriarchal strands of humour theory.
Watch her attempt at feminist twerking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPGEsPgbHOI
And her attempt to manifest a nude female comic body (with help from her pug) here: https://vimeo.com/98566424