...we just don't know when

The owners of Britain’s biggest comedy clubs are confident they can bounce back from the lockdown – but are uncertain when that would be.

While most of those contacted by Chortle were reluctant to put a date on reopening, Paul Blair of Hot Water Comedy Club in Liverpool said: ‘I’d be surprised if there’s another proper live comedy event this year.’

The most optimistic date for reopening was July this year, the most pessimistic September 2021.  Others tentatively suggested this autumn as a likely reopening date – but raised questions over whether they would be able to capitalise on the lucrative Christmas party market.

Jessica Toomey of the Frog and Bucket in Manchester said the festive season would be ‘hit hard’  as even if venues were allowed to reopen, employees would be too concerned about social distancing to want to gather in close quarters.

Similar concerns about the viability of opening under reduced capacity to keep punters apart were expressed by several of the bosses.

Mike Jones, managing director of the three Stand comedy clubs saying: ‘Some kind of phased reopening with restricted capacity allowing for social distancing is not an appealing one – it’s the antithesis of what we do – and is probably not economically viable in any case.’

Mark Tughan, of the Glee chain, agreed: ‘While we can function with a small loss of capacity, there comes a point where it would be more loss-making to be open with big distancing restrictions, but with no financial life-support.’

He added that before lockdown the company had been ‘trading our socks off’ and had even planned to open another Glee – but now admitted ‘we are assuming things will be poor, very poor, and catastrophic.’

Despite that, he said: ‘I'm glass half-full. This will pass, It's just going to take time. I'll suck up a really bad patch of business as long as it's still fundamentally viable and I have support, of staff and performers.’

All the clubs said they would somehow get by in lockdown as long as the current government financial help remained in place, with many saying the crisis might bring some resolution to long-running bones of contention in the industry, such as unfair rates and inflexible landlords. 

Their comments come a week after London’s Angel Comedy Club said its Bill Murray venue would not survive the coronavirus lockdown unless fans bailed it out. ‘The brutal fact is that without your support, we will fold,’ they told supporters.

Several of the bigger purpose-built clubs said they had been pleasantly surprised that audiences were prepared to support them financially. Jones said: ‘One thing we've seen from the positive response to our live-streamed Saturday shows is that our brand is strong and that there's a lot of loyalty from our customers.’

And Richard Daws of the Komedia in Brighton and Bath said: ‘We have seen an outpouring of generosity from the public and performers since closure.’

He said he was opening up the venues’ archives and said: ‘In time, venues and live entertainment will return in full force, but the relationship with online content will have evolved beyond all recognition. Thankfully, nothing will ever totally replace the experience of live entertainment/‘

But some painted a bleaker picture. The owner of one venue said: ‘Most purpose-built comedy clubs will be in a similar position to us, burning 10-15k per month whilst closed

‘Obviously any profit that was being made beforehand is also gone and most venue owners will have no support from the government as a lot of staff won’t be on the payroll to capitalise on any furlough payments. In a nutshell, we have a lot of outgoings and absolute zero income with no end in sight.’

Not all the concerns were directly related to the business. One operator wondered if the comics might have got rusty – and wondered if audiences would want to hear Covid-19 jokes, or want comedy to be an escape from it all.

Read all the owners’ comments in full here.

Published: 30 Apr 2020