Undercover Comedy are a 'queer comedy coven' founded earlier this year, who perform regularly at Jolly Farmers and Gulp Fiction. They also host a popular comedy open mic, TBD. Daily Info sat down with the UC team to find out more about their growing success.
How did Undercover Comedy come to be?
Undercover Comedy is the brainchild of founding members Anna George, Caitriona Dowden, Emily Bampton, Alex Burgar, and Jamie Mykaela, with the goal of showcasing underrepresented voices in the comedy community. We wanted to create a room and a collective with a sense of community and support, where audiences can come and see people like them on stage, doing material that they find relatable, and even feel inspired to potentially join the comedy coven one day!
It’s also turned into an excellent opportunity for all of us to learn from each other, work and flex our production chops and pass this education on to emerging artists and hopefully heading into opportunities to produce touring shows/podcasts/film clubs/comedy workshops (for both material and independently producing) and cabaret nights!
What can audiences expect from your shows?
Honestly? Immaculate vibes! We have a huge focus on variety with acts at UC — plenty of deadpan, observational comedy, absurd, musical comedy, clowning, comedy-cabaret, all from a variety of different voices.
It’s something for everyone as well as potentially something a little bit different. The punk/DIY ethos runs strong throughout the night and is definitely reflected in the feeling of friendliness and community amongst our team, acts, and audience.
What's been a highlight so far?
It’s hard to pick just ONE! The very first new material night we held is up there. We had exactly three days of advertising to pull it together, and when you run a free night, you never really know how many people show up — so when we packed out the basement of the Jolly Farmers and had audience members sitting on the stairs and the floor so the acts could barely get onstage and our photographer could barely take photos — we were SO elated that Oxford really showed up for us and our ambitious little night. The sense of community has continued to run deep throughout all our nights and we are eternally grateful that Oxford has chosen to support our nights. It really feels like we are all in this together- comedians, producers, and audience.
What are you still looking forward to this Summer?
We are still running shows in July and August, and it will be lovely to provide something for the audiences and comics not headed up to Edinburgh this year. We currently run two shows every month — a new act/ new material night at the Jolly Farmers, and a pro night at Gulp Fiction. But also three of the five main Undercover Comedy admin team are doing their own solo shows at the Oxford Comedy Festival: Caitriona Dowden is Holier Than Thou, Burgarmeister by Alex Burgar and Jamie Mykaela: I JUST NEED TO SMILE MORE — it’s gonna be a big July for the UC team!
Describe Undercover Comedy in three words?
Chaos, comradery, and cackles.
You can next come be part of this new and growing comedy community on August 3rd at Gulp Fiction in the Covered Market. Tickets available here on Eventbrite.