We Built Our Own Stage.

I didn’t start stand-up intending to run an international comedy collective for women, femmes and thems. The first time I ever produced a show was in Hong Kong, in April 2021, meant to be a one-off gig with a six-woman lineup because we were tired of competing for the “token” spot on all-male lineups.

It sold out in six hours. The venue asked us back the next month, and the month after. By that summer, Bitches in Stitches had evolved from a show title into Hong Kong’s first all-female stand-up comedy group, with monthly residencies in three venues across the city.

I realised then that we weren’t riding on a gimmick, but validating a need.

From Petty to Purpose

Admittedly, I put on that first show to prove a point, after our group chat of over 100 Hong Kong-based comedians spiralled into a vitriolic, 24-hour debate when a few male producers said they weren’t booking more women on their lineups because “we weren’t funny.”

I knew it would be pointless to say anything. So I did something about it instead.

The room for that first show was electric. There was a nervous energy about the performers: half excitement, half anxiety. Without the pressure of having to represent “all female comedians” as the only woman on a lineup, it meant we would finally be seen as individuals. And that we had nowhere to hide.

As it turned out, we didn’t need to. In its first two years in Hong Kong, Bitches in Stitches sold out 30 consecutive shows, a testament to the fact that inclusivity and commerciality can absolutely co-exist in comedy.

Choosing Community Over Competition

By 2024, I’d moved back to the Philippines and expanded Bitches in Stitches there. Then, something strange happened.

I received a Google Alert for “Bitches in Stitches” and discovered an all-female comedy night in Manchester with the exact same name.

At first, I panicked. But when I spoke to Natalia Schwartz, the comic, MC, producer and all-around beautiful human running the Manchester night, that weirdness turned into recognition. We had created a night with the same name on opposite sides of the world because we were responding to the same problem: women in comedy being treated like a quota, a novelty, or a risk.

By then, Bitches in Stitches already existed in Hong Kong and Manila. Community over competition was always the goal. But discovering Natalia’s version of BiS proved something bigger to me: the problem was never local.

Misogyny in comedy is not confined to one city, one culture, or one language. It just changes accents.

But so does the resistance.

Everywhere you go, there are brilliant, talented women, femmes and thems who are done asking for permission to take up space. We could have treated the matching names like a problem to solve. Instead, we took it as a sign.

If two all-female comedy nights with the same name could appear independently on opposite sides of the world, maybe that was not a coincidence. Maybe it was proof of demand.

Proof that diversity, equity and inclusion are not trends, optics, or branding exercises. They are what happens when people build the rooms they needed all along.

So we merged.

Today, Bitches in Stitches connects more than 90 performers across chapters and communities in Hong Kong, Manila, Manchester and London. The point was never to build one perfect room with one set lineup. It was to keep making the room bigger.

This August, we’re bringing that ethos to Edinburgh Fringe for the first time with Bitches in Stitches: The New Grrrl Order, a fast, filthy, femme/them-forward comedy hour featuring performers from across our international chapters.

For me, the Fringe isn’t just a milestone. It’s a full-circle moment.

What started as a petty response to being underestimated has become a community, a platform and a reminder: women, femmes and thems in comedy were never the problem. The rooms were.

So we built our own stage.

And now we’re taking it to the biggest one we can find.

Bitches in Stitches: The New Grrrl Order runs at Edinburgh Fringe from 10th–27th August, Mondays–Thursdays, at Boston Bar, New Town. If you’re heading to the Fringe, come and see the room we built.

Tickets are available here!

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