Fundraising gigs for the new HR body, Get Off! Live Comedy

Sara Pascoe, Nish Kumar, Russell Howard and more are to take part in two major fundraising gigs to tackle sexual harassment within the live comedy industry.

They will be performing benefits for Get Off! Live Comedy, a body set up last year by a group of comedians to offer an independent human resources body for the stand-up circuit.

It has been running on skeleton staff during the pandemic but is now gearing up to provide training, support and dedicated HR specialists across the industry.

In the long term, organisers want venues to fund much of their work by asking venue to join and paying a means-tested membership. But with the industry battered by the pandemic they are getting the ball rolling with fundraising gigs.

The benefit shows will also coincide with the launch of a survey into sexual harassment in the industry which has been developed with the University of Sunderland and enable Get Off! Live Comedy to focus resources where they are needed.

In 2019, a survey conducted by Chortle found that one in three female comics had been sexually harassed on stage, and more half had been made to feel ‘very uncomfortable’ backstage.

Kiri Pritchard-McLean,  one of the driving forces behind Get Off! Live Comedy, said: ‘Tackling sexual harassment seems like a Herculean task and it is, but we’ve been heartened by how passionate and committed everyone we’ve spoken to in live comedy is to ending it.’

The first gig is on November 17 at the Comedy Store in London and features Sara Pascoe, Nish Kumar, Nina Gilligan, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Sikisa Bostwick Barnes and Russell Howard. Tickets

And on November 23, the Frog and Bucket in Manchester hosts Daliso Chaponda, Nina Gilligan, Stephen Bailey, Bethany Black, Erika Ehler, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Rachel Fairburn. Tickets

Published: 3 Nov 2021