THE Liverpool Comedy Festival is now officially up and running, and the organisers say there are going to be more laughs than ever. Eighteen days, featuring 99 different shows at 40 different Merseyside venues, makes it the biggest festival yet. Marketing manager Iain Christie said: “We’ve done our sums and we reckon that the number of shows, times the average hour-long length of each show, times the audience figures should produce one million laughs – or a laugh a minute.” The festival begins tonight with three typically diverse presentations. The Royal Court will stage Funny Business, which showcases the star pupils from the six-week course in which comic first-timers from businesses across the region have been taught the skills of stand-up comedy. At the Liverpool Academy of Performing Arts, on Mount Street, Liverpool comedienne Pauline Daniels and ex-Brookside actor Neil Caple will be the performers in Two. Bolton author Jim Cartwright's character study of a northern pub, its eccentric customers and its warring landlord and wife won the Manchester Evening News Best New Play award in 1989 and has been in production ever since. Meanwhile, at Baby Blue, on the Albert Dock is the eccentric Charlie Chuck, one of Paul McCartney’s favourite comedians. In the days to follow, besides the best of Liverpool’s comedians, the festival has been attracting some of the most cutting edge talent. For instance, the festival will have its first ever comic from Malawi, Daliso Chaiponda. He has been a resident in Liverpool for just over a year and will be offering wry observations of his time in the city on the Drink Up Stand Up pub crawls. Liverpool-born Christie, a veteran talent comic talent spotter, has his own recommendations. For families, there is James Campbell, the world’s only stand-up comedian for children, who will be appearing at the Royal Court this Sunday at 2pm. For value for money, there’s the Triple Bill Show at the Royal Court on Wednesday, June 13. This features three one-hour shows by Australian comedian Tim Minchin, Jason Byrne from Ireland and the duo Topping and Butch doing their outrageous sell-out Edinburgh show Filth for the all-in price of £20. His top tip from abroad is the 3ft 6 inch tall comedian Tanyalee Davis, from Las Vegas. She will be performing her Little Do They Know Show at the Unity Theatre on Saturday, June 16. “She went down a storm when she played Rawhide for the first time a few months back and is flying in especially from the States for this show,” added Christie, who said that this had the potential to be the most popular Comedy Festival yet. “We’ve benefited from moving the dateline back a month this year. Many venues close for the summer in July so we’ve been able to choose from many more that are still open. Plus Liverpool is now used to having a comedy festival and sales have been going well.” | 
