That's V sexist!

Festival under fire for all-male line-up

The V Festival has come under fire for booking an all-male line-up for its comedy tent.

A total of 26 comedians were booked for the two-day event, headlined by Justin Timberlake and The Killers, yet none of them are women.

Posting on Twitter, comic Lindsay Sharman said: ‘Why isn't there a single female comic on the line-up? Not exactly representative of the comedy scene.’

And fellow stand-up Leo Kearse joked: ‘The V stands for Vagina-free’.

Brighton university lecturer Dr Katy Shaw, who is working on a monograph about women in comedy, used the hashtag #everydaysexism to point out that there were, ‘no female comics AT ALL’ on the bill.

Some female acts, including Katherine Ryan and Jen Brister, said they had been approached to perform, but were unavailable. The event runs concurrently in Hylands Park, Chelmsford, and Weston Park, Staffordshire on August 16 and 17 – clashing with the Edinburgh Fringe.

Nonetheless, organisers had no difficulty finding male acts to fill their schedule, including internet comic Dapper Laughs, who bills himself as ‘a proper lad’ and who has been dubbed ‘Roy Chubby Brown with a smartphone.’

Headlined by Alan Carr and Adam Hills, the full supporting line-up of comics is: Andy Askins, Charlie Baker, Rob Beckett, Andrew Bird, Pat Cahill, Paul Chowdhry, Dapper Laughs, Keith Farnan, John Fothergill, Dave Fulton Boothby Graffoe, Steve Gribbin, Ben Hurley, Andrew Maxwell, Kevin McCarthy, Jimmy McGhie, Phil Nicol, Geoff Norcott, Matt Reed, Jarlath Regan, Matt Richardson, Jim Smallman, Dave Twentyman and Peter White.