As Winter sets in here at the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, we thought we would give a quick update on what we’re currently working on! As we near the end of the year we are delighted to now have 21 comedy collections as part of the archive. We have now received material from:
– Alexei Sayle
– Andrew Sherlock
– Attila the Stockbroker
– BSUCA Events
– Camden Fringe
– Folkestone Comedy Club
– Ian Gardhouse
– Jeremy Hardy
– John Pidgeon
– Linda Smith
– Lost Voice Guy
– Monika Bobinska (of the Meccano Club / Canal Gallery)
– Mark Thomas
– Nick Toczek
– Oliver Double
– Peter Grahame (of Downstairs at the Kings Head)
– Richard Herring
– Robin Ince
– Tony Allen
– Tiernan Douieb
– What the Frock! Comedy
New Lost Voice Guy Collection- November 2015
Cataloguing:
As our collections grow, it becomes increasingly important to list and catalogue every collection on the University of Kent’s Special Collections & Archives Calm archival database. All collections have been catalogued to collection level and significant progress has been made in the cataloguing of our first, and largest, collections: The Linda Smith Collection, The Mark Thomas Collection and The John Pidgeon Collection. These collections were made a priority at the start of the BSUCA project due to their size and the large amounts, and variety of formats, of audiovisual material within them.
Cataloguing increases access and availability of the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive and the next major step for us will be when the full BSUCA collection listings will be accessible via a Special Collections & Archives CalmView site in 2016. Until this point we are happy to provide any further information regarding the collections and their content to anyone interested and material can be viewed in the Special Collections & Archives Reading Room in the Templeman Library on request (email specialcollections@kent.ac.uk).
Just 2 of the boxes of comedy books from the Ian Gardhouse collection
Conference:
It’s not long not until the joint British Stand-Up Comedy Archive and British Cartoon Archive conference (‘Comedy on stage and page: satirical cartoons and stand-up’) on the 14th-15th January 2016. We have received some fantastic abstracts for papers and are delighted to have speakers and guests including Ivor Dembina, Steve Bell and Arnold Brown.
More information will be available very soon regarding registration for the conference. We look forward to seeing you there!
Exhibition:
As part of the preparations for the January conference, we will be holding a joint exhibition with the British Cartoon Archive in the brand new exhibition space in the new Templeman Library West, on the first floor, right outside the Special Collections Reading Room. We’re delighted to be able to exhibit a range of materials from the BSUCA archive related to comedy performance, promotion, venues, and the intersection of comedy and politics. This exhibition is due to be unveiled from Monday 15th December and will run throughout the conference in January 2016.
A selection of cassette tapes from the Andrew Sherlock Collection. Andrew created a radio show ‘Best of Order’ about the history & legacy of working men’s clubs in Merseyside [These tapes are currently being digitised]