Funny Women blasts Chortle judges

Organisers of the Funny Women competition have accused Chortle Award judges of perpetuating a 'boys' club' image of comedy and choosing nominees based on a 'Google search' rather than seeing acts live.

The shortlists announced this week have attracted comment as they feature only two women: Susan Calman, who is up for best compere, and Dana Alexander, up for best club comic.

A blog on the Funny Women website claims this smacks of 'very sour grapes indeed' from the critics who drew up the shortlist.

It said: 'Our view is that the British Comedy Awards are balanced out by the voting public, even though industry figures including Funny Women founder, Lynne Parker, start the voting process.

'Opinion is broader whereas with the Chortle Awards, there is an ‘insider’ approach to the selection which further perpetuated the ‘boys club’ image that we are keen to dilute.'

In fact, aside from the People's Choice award - this year won by Sarah Millican - the British Comedy Awards are decided entirely by the industry. An academy of comedians, agents and others initially vote on suggestions made by broadcaters, producing a 'medium list', which is then whittled down to nominations and winners by a smaller judging panel drawn from the industry.

The British Comedy Awards also has separate categories for best male and female TV comic, and best TV comedy actor and actress - thus guaranteeing women are among the nominees.

The Funny Women blog went on to mention that the Chortle shortlists are decided by a panel of journalists, adding: 'Given that journalists are not hot to trot in our neck of the woods, the betting is that they do a Google search in preference to getting out to see live comedy properly for themselves. Certainly we could show them a very good time!'

The final shortlist for the Chortle awards was drawn up by a panel of four men and three women: Chortle editor Steve Bennett; Julia Chamberlain, who books for the Highlight clubs, runs the So You Think You're Funny new act competition, and occasionally reviews for Chortle; Time Out comedy editor Ben Williams; London Evening Standard comedy reviewer Bruce Dessau; Scotsman chief comedy critic Kate Copstick; The Independent comedy reviewer Julian Hall; and Marissa Burgess, who writes about comedy for the Manchester Evening News.

Others who contributed to the process were Glasgow-based freelance writer Jay Richardson, Chortle's Corry Shaw and Nione Meakin, from the Brighton Argus.

Judges of the last Funny Women competition included Louise Court, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, and Dr Linda Papadopoulos, a TV psychologist and author of Mirror Mirror: Dr. Linda's Body Image Revolution.

Bennett said: 'It's deliberately insulting to suggest the Chortle panel never get out to see live comedy - we all live and breathe stand-up, and I don't think you could find a group of people who go to more nights of live comedy than this.'

Chortle has previously been highly critical of Funny Women as it charges new acts £15 to take part, a pay-to-play philosophy that is unique among all the major comedy competitions. The company also runs £20-an-hour comedy workshops to 'help women to explore their funny side to build self confidence, improve relationships and enhance communications'

Their blog about the Chortle Awards concluded: 'The reality is that women are doing exceedingly well at comedy at the moment and this shortlist smacks of very sour grapes indeed.'

Published: 25 Feb 2012