{"id":14,"date":"2015-01-06T17:15:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-06T17:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/standupcomedyarchive\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2025-11-12T10:06:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T10:06:50","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/standupcomedyarchive\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About the BSUCA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Stand-Up Comedy Archive at the University of Kent was established in 2013 to celebrate, preserve, and provide access to the archives and records of British stand-up comedy and stand-up comedians. The inspiration for the establishment of this archive was the deposit at the University of the personal archive of the comedian Linda Smith (1958-2006). Other early deposits were\u00a0from Tony Allen, a pioneer of alternative comedy, Mark Thomas, comedian and political activist, and John Pidgeon, journalist and producer of music and comedy radio programmes. The collections contain audio visual recordings (both off-air recordings\u00a0and recordings of\u00a0live events), scripts, publicity material, photographs, press, correspondence, and props.<\/p>\n

The archive was established by the University of Kent’s Special Collections & Archives<\/a> and with Dr Oliver Double, Reader in Comic and Popular Performance at the University of Kent.<\/p>\n

In 2014 the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive (BSUCA)\u00a0became one of the University of Kent’s Beacon Projects. The project organised the public launch of the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive,\u00a0catalogued, digitised,\u00a0and made accessible the existing collections, and identified new relevant collections. The BSUCA Beacon Project also included a series of public events during 2015 and 2016, including the inaugural Linda Smith lecture, a series of ‘in conversation’ events with Olly Double, and\u00a0a conference in January 2016.\u00a0 Further information is available on the events page<\/a> of this blog.<\/p>\n

The BSUCA Beacon project was led by Dr Nick Hiley (Head of Special Collections & Archives at the University of Kent) and Dr Oliver Double (Deputy Head of the School of Arts at the University of Kent, and former professional stand-up comedian). The British Stand-Up Comedy Archive\u00a0project team were:<\/p>\n