'You can tell jokes here you can't tell anywhere else' – inside Leicester's comedy scene

It is the home town of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend, and Mash Report star Rachel Parris. And Leicester does love to celebrate their success: Townsend has a theatre named after her and there is a plaque for Chapman. But it is every February that Leicester’s comedy scene really comes to life. What started in 1994 as a project for De Montfort University students has become the UK’s longest-running dedicated comedy festival.

But things could have been very different, reveals Geoff Rowe, Leicester comedy festival’s founding director. “Our lecturer said, ‘Why don’t you put on a festival of eastern European theatre?’” he recalls. Fortunately, Rowe and his fellow students were avid readers of NME, which in 1993 was championing the “Comedy is the new rock’n’roll” notion. The paper had put Rob Newman and David Baddiel on the cover because they’d sold out Wembley Arena. “Standup comedy sounded exciting,” says Rowe.

The first festival was a week-long event. Rowe and his team convinced Norman Wisdom and Tony Slattery to become patrons and drew in such big names as Harry Hill. Now there are 19 days of standup, with live broadcasts and panels, as well as a parallel festival for children.

It also spawned one of the UK’s top comedy prizes, the Leicester Mercury comedian of the year (past winners include Johnny Vegas, Romesh Ranganathan and Leicester local Matt Hollins) alongside the UK Pun championship (where comic wordsmiths swap puns in a boxing ring) and the Silver Stand Up competition (for comedians aged 55-plus).

That’s February, but what about the rest of the year? Leicester has “a blend of people from diverse backgrounds”, says local comedian Rahul Somia. Rowe agrees: “If you want to explore contemporary British comedy, Leicester, because of its diversity, is a good place. Comedians say, ‘You can tell jokes in Leicester that you can’t tell anywhere else’ – because we get different cultures.”

While it has no official comedy club, there are independent nights, including Tickled Pink, Comedy and Cocktails, and Jokes on Us. Somia first tried standup at university in London. When he moved home last year, he set up Razmataz Comedy Club, giving local comics space to try new material. “In Leicester,” he says, “audiences are not as spoiled for choice, so they’re there for the comedy – and they’re going to enjoy it.”

Sarah Johnson started standup in 2015 and also runs the Proper Funny night with fellow comic Jason Neale. “Local gigs work well,” she says. “We pack the hall. It’s their big night out.” Johnson finds the crowd love local comics: “They are loyal. You see the same people in the audience.”

The city’s comedians are a small group, but supportive, says Johnson. They’re often on the road together, gigging around the Midlands. Johnson recruited several to help her make Fit to Drop, a show about an ambitious fitness instructor called Fiona. Somia’s standup, meanwhile, is influenced by his childhood in the city and “being Indian”. He says: “I’ve tried lots of things on stage, but what’s important to me is moulded by my roots.”

While Johnson performs observational material, she also creates online sketches featuring local busybody Carol and a home-schooling mum. They’re inspired by Leicester people: “I do like people-watching, and the Leicester accent cracks me up. I’m constantly making notes.”

Rob Gee is a mental health nurse and poet who moved into standup 15 years ago. These careers merged in his work with Comedy Asylum, which “uses comedy to address social isolation”, in particular people with mental-health problems. Weekly workshops help participants to articulate their experiences and turn them into something funny, culminating in a live performance. “You’ve got people who were terrified within their own skins,” says Gee. “Then they’re on stage doing a joke with people in hysterics. It’s really empowering.”

In his decade with Comedy Asylum, Gee has helped participants create comedy murder mysteries, a show called Robots Versus Zombies (“all about the pharmaceutical industry”), while a sketch inspired by one participant’s experience asked audiences to guess if statements were describing a care home or a brothel. (“Every week, a retired general is ritually humiliated by someone in a nurse’s uniform.”)

There is still a lot of stigma, he says. “So if someone reads a headline about mental illness that triggers a memory of this gig where they laughed themselves stupid, that’s a positive thing.” Other schemes have brought comedy into schools, hospitals and youth centres. Working with kids aged nine to 11, Gee discovered their love of dad jokes and slapstick, and found puns are great for those speaking English as a second language.

Lockdown has so far prevented socially distanced comedy, though Gee continues working with Comedy Asylum during the pandemic, helping people develop jokes over the phone instead.

Meanwhile, Johnson’s character Carol will be hosting Crafternoon With Carol – a livestreamed show in which she’ll interview comedians and make questionable craft projects from household items. Leicester comedy festival is making plans for a partially virtual return in 2021. Rowe’s currently warming up audiences with comedy Q&As.

Gee says: “The comedy festival has made itself part of the cultural fabric. We all do Diwali and carnival. Everyone is invited to everyone else’s party. That’s how multiculturalism works in Leicester.”

• Crafternoon With Carol is on 8 September at 8pm. Leicester comedy festival’s next Q&A is with Ed Byrne on 10 September.