A laughing matter

Greening the Laughs is Leicester Comedy Festival’s ‘greening up’ programme. Its origins could well be in my relentless switching off of printers and computer screens in the office each night – much to the then consternation of colleagues. These random beginnings have grown to encompass a programme with four main elements: Comedy in the Dark, our stand-up comedy show played almost entirely in pitch black; the Green Room Award, issued annually at our comedy festival to the ‘greenest’ venue; the Comedy Wood; and finally the Green Tax.

Arguably the most successful element – and certainly the funniest – is the comedy show. This has played to packed audiences at our own festival as well as at Edinburgh Fringe. Comedians generally relish this opportunity to challenge themselves and their material. But how should we rate success? As has been pointed out, turning the lights off at one stand-up comedy gig is roughly equivalent to just one less kettle switch-on.

The Comedy Wood and the Green Tax go hand-in-hand. We aim to offset our festival-related carbon emissions through the creation of a real live wood that will form part of the National Forest. Raising income for this was an issue. Our festival works similarly to Edinburgh Fringe in that we do not promote many of our own shows and ticket revenue goes to promoters. However, we committed to raising a levy on income from the few shows we promote and offered industry professionals the opportunity to take up the optional Green Tax levy and buy a tree. Around £5,000 has been raised so far. This has proved controversial though: some people have been annoyed at the mere existence of this very optional opt-in.

We are open about the fact that we are not perfect. We rely too often on cars over public transport and produce too much print. We had a slightly tongue-in-cheek conversation in our office recently around whether it was better for audiences to travel to comedy shows by taxi or car, and how to balance that against reduced emissions through people sharing lighting and heating at a comedy gig. Honestly, we have no idea: there are no easy measures for our work. But we have had support from Julie’s Bicycle, the charity that spearheaded much of the positive change within the music industry. This support has helped shape a Green Charter for the comedy industry that we hope one day will be a benchmark for all. We continue to take small steps and hope for big changes. For some, addressing these issues seems dull and worthy, but if comedy can encourage some people to ask questions of themselves, then all for the good. And soon we will have our very own wood – and we happen to think that is amazing.