Manchester Comedy Festival
The Manchester Comedy Festival is an annual Comedy Festival held in Manchester, England during the last two weeks of October.
Introduction
Unlike the Edinburgh Fringe festival the Manchester Comedy Festival concentrates mainly on stand-up comedy.
Venues
The Manchester Comedy Festival comprised over 90 shows in 30 individual venues with over 25,000 paying punters in 2005. The largest and most popular of these comprise:
Performers
Each year a selection of international acts, UK headliners and local comedians take part to create one of the biggest comedy festivals in the country. In previous years they have included:
- Joan Rivers
- Jimmy Carr
- Dave Spikey
- Gina Yashere
- Lenny Henry
- Patrick Kielty
- Richard Herring
- Jason Manford
- Justin Moorhouse
- Ian Cognito
- Brendon Burns
- Reginald D Hunter
- Alan Carr
- Patrick Monahan
- Chris Addison
- Mick Ferry
- Doug Stanhope
- Lewis Costello
- Russell Brand
Manchester Comedy Festival 2006
In 2006, the festival ran from 19–30 October, including a 5 night run from American maverick Doug Stanhope and a show from British eccentric Russell Brand.
Manchester Comedy Festival 2009
In 2009 the festival ran for 10 days.
Manchester Comedy Festival 2010
In 2010 the festival will run from the 18 - 31 October.
For the first time its two weeks long with over 200 shows in 30 venues across Manchester. The event received national press coverage, and PR was handled by Multitude Media.