Look out Edinburgh, Jason Manford is behind a comedy festival which he hopes will one day rival the world famous annual event in Scotland. Next Saturday, Jason will host an evening at Blackpool Opera House, the flagship event of Manford’s Comedy Festival in the resort which will also feature Dara O’Briain, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Paul Sinha “I’ve been to Edinburgh many times and when I got to pricing it up it struck me how expensive everything was. I thought if I’m noticing it, what must it be like if you are just starting out in comedy? “It got us to thinking if there’s a world in which we can set up our own comedy festival and that’s what we are in the process of doing.
Blackpool is the perfect place, it’s got an infrastructure, accommodation, transport links - it’s even got a comedy carpet. It’s got that entertainment heritage.” Jason was behind a comedy event in Blackpool in 2019 but then Covid struck.
Jason Manford “That knocked everything back,” he said, “but we’re trying again now.” Jason and his team are building on the experience they have gained in establishing comedy clubs at venues all around the country. From the first Manford’s Comedy Club which was actually held at Oswaldtwistle Civic Theatre , there are now 28 active clubs across the UK.
“We set it up to create a bit of an industry standard I suppose,” said Jason. “There are so many clubs that don’t look after the comics, don’t look after the audience, where comi.
