Serious About Comedy is the result of a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham Rep, celebrating Birmingham as a centre for comedy.
Andrew Smith/Fleeting Year Films
The inaugural Rik Mayall Comedy Festival was held from 31 May to 7 June in Droitwich Spa. It saw the world premiere of the documentary feature film telling the story of the Serious About Comedy project, a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Serious About Comedy was launched on April Fool’s Day in 2022 with a conference hosted at the Rep that saw academics speaking on panels alongside stand-up comics, theatre practitioners and comedy performers, including Shazia Mirza, Sophia Ducker and Mrs Barbara Nice. It was inspired by conversations between Sean Foley (2019-2024 Artistic Director, the Rep) and Professor Ewan Fernie (Chair of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute)
The ambitious project questioned and transgressed the boundaries between high and low art. It explored what comedy is and how it works, and asked what forms it might take and how it might contribute to placemaking and cultural life, specifically in Birmingham.
The documentary film, from BAFTA, Emmy and Grierson award-winning filmmakers Andrew Smith and Andy Jackson, features stars of British comedy and performance from Al Murray and Frank Skinner to Adrian Lester and David Mitchell. It explores the Rep’s recent programme of comedy productions under Sean Foley’s artistic direction, including Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image the Musical (2023) and Withnail and I (2024), alongside a search for the essence of comedy and its value in society.
The screening was followed by a panel discussion, featuring some of the key creatives behind the project:
Serious About Comedy was a project delivered in collaboration through the University’s Culture Forward initiative. This draws together the University’s experts, students and researchers with organisations across the arts, cultural, creative, heritage and community sectors that are based - or working - in Birmingham and the West Midlands.
The Rik Mayall Comedy Festival is a new volunteer-run festival based around the Norbury Theatre in Droitwich Spa, where Rik’s parents produced plays and where Rik made his first on-stage appearances.
Birmingham Rep Theatre continues to nurture new artistic talent and pioneer new productions and community projects. It was founded over a century ago by Sir Barry Jackson to be a producing theatre to originate and create new shows in the city.
Chair of Shakespeare Studies and Fellow
Shakespeare and nineteenth-century culture and politics, particularly in Birmingham; and on how Shakespeare may be read in conjunction with great European (especially German) traditions.
