Olly Double and Sophie Quirk take part in live panel at Leicester Comedy Festival

Head of Comedy and Popular Performance, Olly Double, recently took part in a panel discussion titled, ‘Is comedy art?’ with Senior Lecturer, Sophie Quirk, at Leicester Comedy Festival over the weekend. Emma Sullivan, who recently completed her PhD at the School of Arts, and author of blog, Humour in the Arts, was also a panel guest.

The panel, hosted by comedian, Pope Lonergan, included stand-up comedian, writer and director, Stewart Lee. Olly shares his feedback from the event: “The discussion we all had was brilliant. There wasn’t much dissent from the idea that comedy is art except from Stewart, who said that it is art, but it’s good that it’s not recognised as such because it allows comedians to slip under the radar (and thus joked that all evidence of the discussion should be destroyed afterwards). Lots of interesting topics came up, with names mentioned including Amy Schumer, Tony Law, Little Tich, Hannah Gadsby, Denis Diderot, Frankie Howerd, Sigmund Freud and Marcel Duchamp.”

You can watch the replay over on Leicester Comedy Festival’s Facebook page.