Pictured last night 8/8/20 are people enjoying an outdoor comedy gig at The Farmer Inn pub in Catherington village, Hampshire near Portsmouth on a very warm summers evening. The sold-out gig with a secret headliner had the 160 people bring along their own chairs with marked areas for socially distant seating. Four acts took to the stage Chris McCausland, Cally Beaton, James Alderson with Russell Kane being the secret headliner who is often filling 1500 seat venues.

Pictured performing is Russell Kane.

Comedy performers have been hit hard by lockdown restrictions with venues being closed or not financially viable for small numbers of people. Event organiser, and compare James Alderson normally holds regular events indoors, putting the outdoor gigs together with great success.

James Alderson said ÔWhen I decided to do a few gigs I put the word out asking who has a pub with a big field so when I checked this field out, it's enormous so I thought great. We have 160 people and the space is more than adequate, they have festivals here, so even the local residents are used to having these sorts of events in the village. Everyone has an ample two meters around them so have their own space.Õ

Headliner Russell Kane said ÔThis is the third one I have done, three open-air gigs now and the first one IÕve done with a stage and lights, last night the gig finished at sunset, I was late getting on and the light just failed. ItÕs just amazing to stretch my legs, it's impossible for the promoter to make the sums add up so most of us are taking zero-fee or a very small fee. By the time we have travelled we are not really making much money, which shows you not how poor comedians are but how much we are passionate about our craft and willing to do this for a loss and that is what the theatres are going to have to do as well. They are going to have to open half full and make no profit temporarily just to keep people in the habit of going to the theatre.Õ
ÔEverything you see tonight is brand new, never been heard before by an audience, nothing about relationships, or Lindsey, solid covid coronavirus thirty-minute rant like a greyhound out of the traps.Õ
ÔIÕve been doing a lot of radio, podcasts, TV from my lounge via skype and I have been generating material and lucky enough to have a decent following on social media channels so have been able to create jokes and put them out on Youtube and Facebook. As well as keeping me sharp and my keeping my timing up its created the material for tonight. Its not the same refinement process, for jokes to be properly refined you need to tell them in a room full of people to see if they go awkward or laugh. So IÕm going based on how many people have watched it online and what their comments were. I travelled from Cheshire, took a two-hour train, a two-hour drive. Petrol train tickets and food, it cost me massive amounts to get here and I don't give a f**k, I love it.Õ

Punter Ian Foden said ÔI loved it, we saw James at the Spinnaker tower in March and follow his live streams on Facebook and came to give him some support and it's really funny and the comedians are really good.Õ

Comedy All Stars have two shows in September with tickets still available for the open-air gigs, with the birthday show on 19th September featuring Zoe Lyons, Angelos Epithemiou and a super-secret headline act who has been on every TV show there is, book online at comedy-allstars.co.uk

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