It was around this time last year that I was among the women anxiously waiting to see whether I had gotten through to the semi-final of the Funny Women Awards 2011.
Unaware that I would make it all the way to the charity final, I crowded in with the other girls backstage nervously waiting to perform my quarter-final set. Sure, I was confident that my material was funny enough to amuse myself, but I had started having doubts as to whether it would hit anybody else’s funny bone. Coupled with inexperience, these doubts led to me drying up half way through my set and over-running by a full two minutes.
I took on board some advice I had received from those more experienced than myself and made sure that my semi-final set was more polished and succinct.
This was quite unlike other competitions I had entered. Not because it was a competition run by a woman, for women (in a sort of passive transmission of the instinct to nurture), but because it was the conscious and active realisation that the founder’s aim was to encourage and support talented women and give them a platform on which to shine.
I had a real sense of being part of something, something where the organisers cared about the acts and wanted them to be the best that they could be, irrespective of their own comedy tastes.
I look forward to seeing the 2012 finalists perform on Monday 24th September at the Leicester Square Theatre!
To book tickets to find out which one of our remaining remaining spectacular semi-final heats is nearest to you and to buy tickets click HERE.
Katherine Bennett
