Comics meet comedy as Frankie Boyle and Josie Long make appearances at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival‘s opening night and for festival weekend gigs.
Taking place on Friday 29th September to 1st October 2023 in the beautiful Lake District town of Bowness-on-Windermere in England, The Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) is one of the two BIG comics events in the UK (Thought Bubble in Harrogate being the other) and it’s a proper comics festival – taking over the town with comics events all weekend and in the weeks leading up to the two-day comic convention.
This year, the whole thing really kicks off with a very special event, as comedians Frankie Boyle and Josie Long are taking part in ‘Comedians on Comics‘ on the opening night of the festival weekend.
Taking place at the Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness, the two will discuss comics and comedy on the Friday night, followed by solo shows on the Saturday from both. The events are all ticketed separately to the Festival weekend and will no doubt sell out incredibly quickly.
Both comedians have a history of comics, both as fans and, in Boyle’s case, as a writer of Rex Royd for Mark Millar’s Clint mag back in 2010. So no one gets to be all pissy about why they’re doing this sort of thing. Yep, gatekeepers are the worst and do more to damage the medium than anything else. Personally, the idea of new, curious fans of Boyle and Long, coming to their first comics show is a great move on the part of LICAF.
Oh, and if you really don’t know their names… here’s the LICAF PR…
“Frankie Boyle is one of The UK’s premier comedians and writers, and a lifelong comics fan. He’s known for his shows New World Order (BBC2), Tramadol Nights (Channel 4) and his best-selling DVD’s and Netflix Special.
Frankie has also penned three best selling books, and wrote “Rex Royd”, a comic strip for Mark Millar’s CLINT comic anthology, published by Titan, and collected in 2018.
‘I wanted to try to do something that came from the heart,” he’s previously said of the strip. “The state-of-the-art in comics always seemed a bit linear and it seems so unambitious. I wanted to do different sections from an overall story you didn’t see all of. I just f*****g love comics and I’m keen to develop the whole thing in the least comic book way possible! Rex is complex, but you don’t necessarily need to follow everything. I’m not asking the reader to work as much as have an open mind.’”
“Josie Long is a multi-award-winning comedian, writer, podcaster, and film-maker. She is a trailblazer of the UK comedy industry, as the first woman to be nominated three times for Edinburgh Comedy Award (2010 – 2012). Her nine critically acclaimed tours showcased her unique and powerfully original voice and have been performed globally to sell-out shows. Her various podcasts and original radio shows have garnered her a world-wide audience of dedicated listeners and multiple awards.
She’s been on all the TV channels, and several of her comedy specials are officially available online: Cara Josephine, available from Soho Theatre as a download, and Josie Long’s Romance and Adventure, available on YouTube.
Her debut book, a collection of short stories called Because I Don’t Know What You Mean and What You Don’t, is published later this May, and she will be touring the UK to promote it on her “Long Book Tour”.”
So there you go.
All of this of course in addition to the two-day festival bringing a hundred plus guests and exhibitors to Bowness. It’s early yet, but they always have a huge number of guests and exhibitors – with guest names so far announced being Charlie Adlard, Mehdi Annassi aka Machima, Gigi Cavenago, Gerhard, Lina Ghaibeh, Peter Hogan, Michael Lark, Lucie Lomová, Dave McKean, Bill Morrison, Steve and Annie Parkhouse, Marek Rubec, Mohamed Salah, Rachael Smith and Awkward Yeti creator Nick Sulek.
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere 29th September to 1st October 2023 – tickets and info at the site.
The Frankie Boyle and Josie Long opening night show on 29 September is at the Old Laundry Theatre in Bowness, tickets cost £25 and are available at the LICAF site.
Frankie Boyle: Lap of Shame is at 6.30pm Saturday 30th September 2023, The Old Laundry Theatre. Age 16+ only. Tickets £20 – you can buy them from the Old Laundry website. Well, you should be able to but they weren’t there when I visited – I’m sure they’ll have sorted that one out asap.
Josie Long – Re-enchantment is at 8.00pm Saturday 30th September 2023, The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere. Age 14+. Tickets £16.50 / Financial Difficulty Concession (limited tickets available) £10 – you can buy those here. These tickets are up on the Laundry Theatre site right here.
Comics meet comedy as Frankie Boyle and Josie Long make appearances at The Lakes International Comic Art Festival‘s opening nightCOMICONRead More