Scottish comedy turns to Glasgow for more fun - Karen Koren

The Glasgow International Comedy Festival started yesterday with Frankie Boyle opening the programme with his show at the King’s Theatre.

The Glasgow International Comedy Festival will award the inaugural Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award

Gilded Balloon are directors of the newly formed company that run the Comedy Festival together with The Stand and Krista MacDonald. The Comedy Festival is in it’s 20th year and our intention is to attract audiences from further afield. We try and get people from Glasgow to Edinburgh during the Fringe in August – so we would like to get people from Edinburgh to Glasgow to enjoy the Comedy Festival.

The programme is a mixture of local talent and others including Susie McCabe, Suzie Ruffell, Gary Tank Commander, Stewart Lee, Phil Wang, Fern Brady, Jason Byrne, Rich Hall, Paul Black, Ardal O’Hanlon, Fred McAulay, Emmanuel Sonubi, Craig Hill, Andrew Maxwell and The Duncan and Judy Murray Show.

We have created the Sir Billy Connolly Spirit of Glasgow Award as the official award given by the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. The winner is announced at the Festival’s Closing Gala on the 2nd April. The award is in its first year and aims to celebrate the Glaswegian warmth, resilience and above all sense of humour.

Billy Connolly said, “Comedy, like drama, is about conflict, and Glasgow is my city of conflict… memories of being cold and warm, in love and heartbroken, crying with laughter and regret”

Any individual, group, production or performance registered as part of the Festival is eligible. The criteria is a sense of humour, resilience, being as warm as we are tough, openness, having good patter with everyone, unapologetic, a sense of pride, unpretentious. A panel of independent judges will decide on the award.

The Comedy Festival runs until 2 April. For tickets go to glasgowinternationalcomedyfestival.com