The History of Clowning Around as a non-profit making community group

It all started on the 13th February 2000.  Leicester Comedy Festival arranged two workshops on one day - one on stand-up comedy and one on improvisation.  These excellent events generated a community spirit and a will to continue that led to the the formation of this group on the 27th March 2000.  

Leicester Comedy festival supported the idea and meetings began to take place on alternate Monday evenings at 27A Access Art Space.  The group became formally constituted in May and the group began to work towards putting on a show in Edinburgh at the end of the Festival.  The theme of the show was Laughter is Good For You and  Healthy Humour so the show consisted of original material without any 'f' words at all.  This show proved to be enjoyed by all the paying customers and the participants too.  This has fired one of our members to get on the 'circuit' in London at least once or twice a week and has fired this group up to try to get a Comedy Club off the ground in Leicester and possibly Melton Mowbray.  Always assuming we can get the commitment and the funding. 

A group of us performed at Melton Day to support the 'Positive Steps Toward Mental Health' stand as bringing laughter into the community is one of the group's aims.  One group member has begun to introduce Improvisation to a group of recovering mentally ill people using the example set by Weiner - Rehearsals for Growth and this is an area Clowning Around would like to get more involved with in the future. 

In October we managed to involve the WEA, Leicester City Council and Leicester Comedy Festival with the New Agenda Arts Trust and ran a short course "Try Your Hand at Stand-up" which was reported on by the Leicester Mercury on October 30th 2000.  

Hopes for the future: 

We want to get involved more and more in promoting 'healthy humour' and supporting Mental Health as we do so. 

We also want to bring more and more professional training and development opportunities in the art of laughter making to Leicester and Leicestershire to both our own benefit and to the benefit of the community.  Making 'having a laugh' a good-natured opportunity for as many people and groups as possible. 

Any funds raised and profits achieved will be used to promote humour and comedy generally.  At this early stage in our development is is hard to predict what our next catharsis will bring but we are already committed to searching out opportunities for performance and avenues where comedy can be utilised to either Mental Health or Community benefit. 

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