Following a sold-out and hugely-acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe earlier this year with Gobby Girls: The 11% Club, the all-female sketch sensation returns with a brand-new show: Gobby Girls: The After Party.
Created by Gobby Girls Productions and Female Pilot Club – this brand-new hour promises to be bigger, bolder and just a little bit naughtier. Written and performed by a hand-picked ensemble from the frontlines of TV and stand-up, this is an unmissable night of fun. These women are the future of funny. And they’ll have you laughing along as they let you into their fabulous and frustrating worlds.
The Gobby Girls team brings together everyone from the freshest new comedy voices to established talent with credits on The Young Ones, Derry Girls, Doctor Who and Top Boy. From a BAFTA winner to social media legends, the line-up represents the very best of female and non-binary comedy talent.
Their debut Edinburgh Fringe show was filmed by NextUp Comedy and won Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of the Fringe. Now, The After Party continues the Gobby legacy – an unapologetic, raucous celebration of women making comedy on their own terms. With biting wit and a cheeky wink, they’ll tackle topics from motherhood and menopause, to the absolute mess of modern life.
Selected through an open call, the cast and writers form a vibrant line-up from all corners of the UK. The performers – Claire Rafferty (Derry Girls), Laura Evelyn (Doctor Who), Noor Sobka, Alice Etches, Lauren Davidson, Verona Rose (Top Boy), Tonia Toseland and Jo Somner – bring together a wealth of experience from stage, screen and stand-up.
Behind the scenes, an equally impressive team of writers – Charlie Vero-Martin, Sam Lyden & Teresa Burns, Cheryl Duncan, Jenny de Jersey, Mary Flanigan, Jo Somner, Anne-Marie Draycott & Charity Trimm, Emma Keaveney-Roys & Lotte Allan, Sinead Hegarty, Jane Harvey & Rosie Sosic, Natalie Malla & Xara Higgs, Charlotte Audrey, Noor Sobka, Lauren Davidson, Alice Etches and Laura Evelyn – have combined their distinctive voices under the guidance of the show’s first-rate production teams to create something truly special. Between them they’ve written for Radio 4, BBC Scotland and BBC Northern Ireland, CBeebies, Cartoon Network and more, Among them are winners of Funny Women Awards, the BAFTA Rocliffe Comedy Scriptwriting Competition, the Bafta Rocliffe New Drama Writing Forum, and the London Screenwriters Festival 50 Kisses Competition; alumni of the Channel 4 Screenwriting Course, the Netflix Breakout Scheme and multiple Soho Theatre labs.
Gobby Girl Productions champions funny, fierce and female-led comedy projects. Founder Gina Lyons, who co-directs The After Party, is an award-winning scripted producer, has long been a champion for women in comedy. In autumn 2024, Gina set up a supportive WhatsApp community for female-identifying and non-binary voices in comedy, which quickly grew to 1,500 people.
“When I started Gobby Girls, the community, I had a gut feeling there were loads of ridiculously talented women out there being quietly brilliant in comedy. And I was right. Seeing that talent up close only confirmed what I already knew deep in my sarcastic soul: this industry still has a whiff of bias when it comes to women. And I say that as someone who’s been elbowing her way through it as a female producer for years.”
Female Pilot Club was founded in 2019 in response to the stubbornly persistent underrepresentation of female writers in British TV comedy. Now run by writer/performer/producers Kay Stonham, Emily Chase and Chelsea Kania, Female Pilot Club produces showcase productions of comedy pilot scripts written by women for audiences of industry members and comedy lovers. The writers they work with range from complete beginners to Emmy Award winners such as Succession’s Georgia Pritchett.
Female Pilot Club co-founder Kay Stonham co-directs The After Party. She is an award winning writer, performer and academic. As a comedy performer she was in The Young Ones, Dead Ringers and People Like Us, she was also in Mike Leigh’s Home Sweet Home. Jonathan Miller’s The Beggar’s Opera and at the National Theatre Her writing work includes Alas Smith and Jones, Harry Enfield and Chums, Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression and My Family.
Alex Hardy co-directs and produces The After Party, is an award-winning comedy writer, director and producer. She won a Funny Women Comedy Writing Award for a semi-autobiographical sitcom, and a Chortle Award for producing and assistant-directing an alternative comedy-musical on ice. As a director and creative collaborator, she’s worked with acts from debut comics to Apollo alumni, across both TV and live shows. Highlights of her live work include directing Joz Norris’s award-winning Mr Fruit Salad show, and collaborating with Ben Target on his Fringe First-winning play Lorenzo. For television (broadcast and social-first), she has worked with comedians including Rosie Jones, Dave Gorman, Romesh Ranganathan and Munya Chawawa. Her writing credits include The Daily Mash/Mash Report, Dead Ringers, BBC Bitesize, Tiny Happy People, and Mashed, among others.
Tickets for Gobby Girls: The After Party are available here.
