Serious About Comedy: World Premiere

World premiere of a new documentary feature from BAFTA, Emmy and Grierson award-winning filmmakers Andrew Smith and Andy Jackson.

Serious About Comedy tells the delightful story of a comedy collision, collusion and collaboration between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

This ambitious project questioned and transgressed the boundaries between high and low art, 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.

Any earnest effort at finding the funny is inevitably itself, well, a bit funny and the film ends with a simultaneously hilarious and serious call for reinventing Shakespeare for the people, in Birmingham, through laughter.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with some of the key creatives behind the project:

Sean Foley: Double Olivier Award-winning director, writer, comedian and actor, Sean recently co-adapted and directed Dr Strangelove, directed Ben Elton’s Olivier Award nominated stage version of Upstart Crow, and was Artistic Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Iqbal Khan: Theatre director, Associate Director at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Associate Artist of the Box Clever Theatre Company, director of the opening ceremonies for the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Madeleine Kludje: Deputy Artistic Director at The Birmingham Repertory Theatre, UK Theatre Award winner, and director of the UK Theatre award winning show Swim, Aunty, Swim!

Professor Ewan Fernie: Fellow and Chair in Shakespeare Studies at the Shakespeare Institute at the University of Birmingham. An international speaker on Shakespeare, Ewan was a key contributor to Shakespeare: Rise of a Genius (BBC).

This film and screening are delivered as part of the University's Culture Forward initiative, which brings the University, Birmingham and the West Midland’s cultural organisations into closer and more creative collaborations.