We Love Funny Women. So Why Is It So Complicated?
We're a fan of funny women and you are too...kind of. Read on to find out how we support funny women, what concerns we have and how our public responds.
A comedy show organiser's perspective
Let's start by admitting something: I'm a little conflicted.
Some of my absolute favourite comedians are women. We've been lucky enough to welcome some incredible female comedians to our stages, including Maisie Adam, Sara Pascoe, Jen Brister, Laura Smyth, Helen Bauer, Micky Overman, Olga Koch and Kiri Pritchard-McLean. They're all among my top 15 comedians, and if you look at the comedians I book, our biggest headliners are often women.
At their best , they are truly wonderful, insightful and funny. I love a strong woman, and I have my own mother to thank for much of my sense of humour. I always try to have at least one woman on a show and I think it's amazing to have women's voices, thoughts and opinions represented in a cultural space. I want that for women and I want that for society. Even if their jokes sting sometimes as a man.
So where does the conflict come in?
As a booker, I have to balance my enthusiasm for promoting female comedians with my responsibility to put on the best possible show. As an industry and as a society, we want to promote female comedians. But sometimes, the desire to promote female talent can lead to comedians being given headline opportunities before they're quite ready.
Keeping an international audience engaged and entertained for 30 minutes in the way we ask our headliners to do is a serious skill. It's a skill that takes time, practice and experience to develop. I'm careful with booking and it very rarely happens that we have a headline comedian that struggles. And when it has, it's nearly always been because an industry agent and I chose to promote a female comedian that was not yet quite ready.
This isn't a criticism of female comedians. It's a concern about how we develop talent.
And I honestly do not think that is helpful for the comedian, for the industry or for the society to see a female comedian struggle in this situation. It's too easy to confirm prejudices of "women are not funny" this way, I doubt it helps the learning process of the comedian and it's certainly painful for their confidence. As an act, I know how it feels to bomb and how much it hurts.
So, despite my instinct to champion female comedians, I sometimes have to pause and ask myself a difficult question: am I giving this comedian the right opportunity at the right time?
Our view of grassroots female comedy in Switzerland
At grassroots level, we have another challenge: finding women who want to get on stage in the first place.
We'd love to see more women trying stand-up at our open mics, developing their material and progressing to our showcases and, eventually, opening our Big Comedy Kiss shows.
There are undoubtedly cultural and social factors behind the imbalance that I certainly don't feel qualified to write about. What funny women in Switzerland do receive, is loads of opportunity and support. We love having them onstage and we want more.
So if you think you have a funny bone, please sign up to perform at one of our open mics.
What we notice with audiences
Here's where things get interesting.
Women account for 54% of our ticket buyers. And, when we survey our audiences, 54% say they would prefer us to book female comedians. Co-incidence?
But what people tell us they want and what they actually buy tickets for aren't always the same thing. We book lots of female comedians, so lets look at what ticket sales tell us about actual behaviour.
We've noticed a pattern.
Based on our experience, a particular style of female comedian tends to sell tickets well with our audiences. Think polished, precise, clever and feminine in presentation. Olga Koch and Tiff Stevenson are two examples of comedians who, in different ways, fit aspects of this description.
Meanwhile, some female comedians who are louder, brasher, more abrasive, more provocative or more deliberately uncouth have struggled to sell as many tickets.
Personally, I find many of these comedians absolutely hilarious. They remind me of the humour of some of the women I grew up with and went to university with. Remember I mentioned my mother? She always has the dirtiest jokes at the table.
Of course, ticket sales don't tell us everything about what an audience enjoys. They tell us who buys tickets, not necessarily who would make them laugh most once they're in the room. And a comedian's popularity can depend on plenty of things beyond their style, including name recognition, marketing and the audience's familiarity with their material.
Still, the pattern is interesting, and it presents me with a dilemma.
Is it a Swiss thing?
I can't help wondering whether some of what we're seeing reflects the culture and audiences we attract in Switzerland, particularly in Zurich.
My personal experience is that Swiss social culture can often feel more reserved, understated and polite than the British social environments I'm familiar with. And then more than that, the women in the group have often been the quieter individuals at the dinner table. That is quite a contrast to the italian, spanish and english women I've spent time with.
Zurich also has a large professional audience, including people working in finance, law and other industries where a polished, understated style is often the norm. They are not the wild and crazy drunken women of my university years or the creatives that I meet at Comedy Festivals.
It therefore doesn't seem a great leap of the imagination to suggest that these cultural preferences are carrying over into comedy an what acts people want to see.
This causes me a dilemma when booking acts. Because despite what I see in ticket sales, I can't help but be influenced by my love of my mother's humour and all those funny late nights I spent laughing with British female friends. I love the wild, uncouth, gregarious and boundary challenging female comedians out there. It almost makes me want to quote my favourite literary quote:
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..." Jack Kerouac On the Road
Conclusion
So I'll both listen to my gut, my brain and to our audiences. I'll keep on booking funny women. I'll do my best to find you the most talented and skilled female headline comedians and I'll continue to give amateur and upcoming female comedians outsized support and opportunities.
I'll use my brain and try not to push women forward too quickly. And I'll keep on booking those wild, gregarious female comedians that I love so much and hopefully you'll be surprised by how much fun they can be when you see them.
What you can do
Go encourage a support your funny female friends to come and try comedy and be sure to laugh and clap extra loud for them. Be sure to buy tickets to come and see funny women, even if you're unsure that you'll like them. And check out our listing to see who we have coming up.
Comedy Kiss Presents: Ophélie Hocquard in Zurich on 7th November
Come laugh at Frenchies with BBC New Comedy Award nominee Ophélie Hocquard. She brings her debut hour of English stand-up comedy to Zurich in November with Comedy Kiss.
Comedy Kiss Presents: Lara Ricote: Inkling on 21st November in Zurich
I've had my eye on Lara Ricote for a while, always hoping to bring her to Switzerland. She's really witty, sweet and kind of not so sweet at the same time. Fortunately this makes her funny.
Comedy Kiss Presents: Tatty Macleod, Things My Mother Did on 25th November in Zurich
Call me petty, but I love little more than laughing at the French. And Tatty does that wonderfully with intelligence, insight and a love and hate of the culture that can only be cultivated from living there and deeply emerging yourself in the culture. My love and hate only comes from my experience with one woman, my ex-wife, so Tatty is far superior to me.
Comedy Kiss Presents: Micky Overman, Don't Threaten Me with a Good TIme on 12th February in Zurich & Basel
Award-nominated comedian Micky Overman brings her brand-new show, Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time, to Zurich with Comedy Kiss for one night only. Expect sharp, fearless stand-up from one of the hottest names on the circuit.
Comedy Kiss Presents: Grace Campbell - The Lady is a Tramp - 27th Feb in Zurich
Grace Campbell is a contradiction: loud and anxious, spiritual and materialistic, graceful and… a disgrace. And thankfully she's bringing her Comedy Show to Zurich.
Nataly Aukar brings her brand of fearless, hilariously raw comedy to Zurich with Comedy Kiss. Catch her live at Volkshaus Zurich on 24 March and at Uptown Geneva on 23rd March.
Comments