To celebrate International Women’s Day, leading female comedy community Funny Women is running the inaugural Funny Women Around The World. This exciting and hilarious virtual free event will showcase comedy and entertainment from every corner of the globe to launch the Funny Women Awards. Taking place over a continuous 12-hour stream on Twitch, this curated programme of brand new regional talent and familiar Funny Women faces, including Sarah Keyworth and Sooz Kempner, will keep audiences laughing no matter when they tune in.
The Awards were launched in 2003 and continued to run in 2020 during lockdown to fulfil a continuing need to raise the profile of women’s comedy across the world. Over the past year, Funny Women has strengthened its virtual communications and widened its community reach to stretch from London to Manchester, Glasgow to Dublin, from Amsterdam to Boston, Singapore to Melbourne – creating a fabulously international network of comedy-makers!
Kathleen Price, Community Engagement Producer, comments, I don’t think I could ever really summarise the uplifting triumph that I have felt from our community outreach in the face of these tough times, but Funny Women Around the World comes incredibly close. The passion from creatives and performers spanning across several continents and twelve hours with the shared goal of embracing laughter and empowering women will not only be amazing fun, but a sign that there are no limits to where Funny Women’s ethos and ambition can take us.
Funny Women is a not for profit; Community Interest Company founded in 2002 by Lynne Parker to give women a powerful voice through comedy. It provides a centre of excellence for comedy skills and training to enable a stronger female presence in mainstream comedy through performance, new writing and creative development. It runs workshops, comedy courses, outreach events, and provides strong community engagement. The annual Awards have launched many female comedy careers including Zoe Lyons, Sarah Millican, Susan Calman, Bridget Christie, Andi Osho, Katherine Ryan, Sara Pascoe, London Hughes, Jayde Adams and Desiree Burch.
Funny Women Around the World is proud to act as a promotion partner for Plan International UK’s ‘Because I’m a Girl’ campaign. Plan International UK works with young people and youth activists to understand the solutions they need to see in their communities and to lobby those in power, creating last impact and enabling girls to live the lives they choose. Previous successes have included raising the age of marriage to 18 in Guatemala and Malawi, as well as getting the UK Government to recognise street harassment as a form of gender-based violence.
Registration and streaming information is available here
