Overheard by the eager ears of the Funny Women team on Woman's Hour this morning, Brenda Gilhooly ('Gayle Tuesday') and Dick Fiddy discussed an upcoming celebration of female TV comedians in a joint venture between the British Film Institute and the Hackney Empire. Lynne Parker, founder of Funny Women herself appeared on Woman's Hour this year on International Women's Day, you can read all about it HERE.
Brenda discussed her early experiences of being the 'token' woman on the bill with four male comedians, and how if she, or any other female comic in a similar position wasn't funny, it was immediately as if this 'proved' that women weren't funny- whereas that assumption wasn't made for male the male comedians. She then went on to say how she had worked on Harry Hill's TV burp with a group of all male other writers where her sex wasn't an issue. Dick lamented the fact that June Whitfield, one of Britain's greatest comedic talent never got her own TV show. Listen HERE (around 35 mins in)
As we have always believed at Funny Women, female comedians have been making us laugh and disproving the notion that women are just not as funny as men ever since- in the words of Radio 4, Olive Fox got her own show in 1937. Comedy may be a male dominated world, but since Joyce Grenfell in the 1940s, several talented women have achieved the rare feat of hosting their own TV shows. We’ve laughed along to comics like Beryl Reid, Marti Caine, Victoria Wood, and French & Saunders, and now they’re all being celebrated in a new season looking back at the pioneering ‘golden girls,’ or female ‘trailblazers’, of British TV comedy.
So- if you're in London and not at the Edinburgh Fringe with Funny Women, why not go to Queens Of TV Comedy – a new season of rarely seen archive footage and live performance – which takes place at the BFI and Hackney Empire in London from 14th – 28th August 2012. Book tickets HERE.
