THIS WEEK IN CULTURE + THE CULTURE BUSINESS
News Briefing: Parliament session on live comedy
The Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee in the UK Parliament has announced it is holding a session putting the spotlight on the economic, cultural and social impact of live comedy, and challenges faced by the sector.
It’s part of the committee’s new State Of Play initiative, which aims to review aspects of culture, media and sport that are often overlooked in political circles.
In this TW News Briefing, we explain what select committees are, how these sessions work, and why the Live Comedy Association asked MPs to put comedy in the spotlight.
SELECT COMMITTEES
Select committees in Parliament are made up of backbench MPs from all political parties, so MPs who are not actively involved in government and who don’t have a frontbench spokesperson role for the official opposition.
Each select committee is focused on a specific area of government. The Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee scrutinises the work of the Department For Culture, Media & Sport, and reviews developments and issues in the culture, media and sport sectors more generally.
Select committees can’t tell the government what to do or set government policy, but they can make recommendations, and put pressure on both government and industry on key issues.
There are eleven MPs on the CMS Select Committee, which is currently chaired by Conservative MP Caroline Dinenage.
SELECT COMMITTEE INQUIRIES
The select committees also undertake regular inquiries into specific topics. As part of those inquiries, oral hearings are held in Parliament during which people from relevant companies and organisations, or with relevant expertise, are invited to speak and answers questions from MPs.
At the end of each inquiry a report is published which will identify issues and make recommendations for addressing them. Many of those recommendations will be aimed at government and might include proposals for new laws.
Some recommendations may be targeted at key players in whatever sector was in the spotlight, with the suggestion that government should put pressure on those key players to adopt what is recommended.
Although governments are not obliged to follow those recommendations, they do have to provide an official response to each report.
CMS Select Committee inquiries in recent years have put the spotlight on grassroots venues, major cultural and sporting events, influencer culture, music festivals and the economics of music streaming.
In addition to the big inquiries, the committee also stages standalone hearings that put the spotlight on narrower topics or which revisit issues raised in previous inquiries. These don’t always result in a report and government response, but often do.
STATE OF PLAY INQUIRY
Last year the CMS Select Committee announced it was launching a new “rolling inquiry” under the banner State Of Play which will “shine a light on previously unheard issues and challenges”.
This inquiry will work differently. A number of oral hearings will be held each year, each one focused on a different sector or issue. However, as normal, at the end of the process the committee will make a series of recommendations to government.
The committee then invited individuals and organisations to suggest “previously unheard issues and challenges” that could be considered as part of this new inquiry.
Committee chair Dinenage said at the time, “State Of Play is a new style of inquiry that will give everyone involved in culture, media and sport the chance to have their voices heard across the country. We want to hear about the emerging challenges and opportunities facing our fantastic creative industries”.
One of the organisations that responded to that call for suggestions was the Live Comedy Association. While past CMS Select Committee inquiries and sessions have included topics that may impact on the comedy sector, the sector itself has never been scrutinised by the committee. Indeed, comedy in general has rarely been in the political spotlight unlike many other strands of the cultural industries.
Last week the committee announced that live comedy would be the first area considered as part of the State Of Play inquiry.
LIVE COMEDY SESSION
MPs on the committee revealed that more than 250 submissions were made suggesting topics to be considered under the State Of Play banner.
“The state of live comedy will be the focus of the opening session”, they added. “The comedy hearing, proposed by the Live Comedy Association, which represents those working in the industry, will examine the economic, cultural and social impact of live performance on the UK, and the challenges faced by the sector”.
Although the committee is yet to finalise a date or agenda for the comedy session, it noted that the LCA published a survey of the live comedy sector earlier this year.
That survey, the MPs said, “found that while the industry generates more than an estimated £1 billion a year, economic factors, precarious working conditions and inequalities are presenting challenges to its continued success”.
Dinenage added, “Our session will shine a spotlight on the particular challenges faced by live comedy and whether there is more that can be done to keep the laughter coming”.
She noted that – despite the comedy sector’s “widespread and enduring role in our cultural landscape” – we “should not be fooled into thinking that it’s always a barrel of laughs for our nation’s stand-ups, small venues, festivals and those that make the mirth happen behind the scenes”.
“Like so many other of our successful creative industries”, she concluded, “it can be a precarious place to be and no joke for those away from the glare of the big stage spotlight”.
LCA’S RESPONSE
The LCA – and its co-Chairs Jessica Toomey and David Elphick – have welcomed the news that the select committee has chosen comedy as the first focus of its State Of Play inquiry.
Toomey explains why this is an important development for the sector. “Since David and I took over as co-Chairs of the LCA, we have been working for over a year to try and get live comedy recognised by government as a key sector”, she says.
“This is important as once it’s recognised, we can be included in policies and strategies which will benefit those who work in live comedy. We’ve been overlooked for too long and this first session is hopefully a moment when things will change”.
Elphick adds that – after the select committee encouraged suggestions for what its State Of Play inquiry might cover – “we submitted something online back at the end of 2024 and they recently emailed us to say we had been accepted”.
“The session is very much organised by the select committee”, he goes on, but “apparently we were chosen as the first session from over 250 ideas; hopefully that is a signal of how important they are taking the sector”.
As for what specific issues might be addressed during the select committee’s comedy session, Toomey says “at the moment we don’t know”, but “we are pretty certain at least one of the LCA members will be invited to give evidence, but there may well be others attending as well”.
“From what we understand”, she adds, “they will use the survey report we published in February, together with our friends at Centre For Comedy Studies Research, to plan the session. The report was based on responses from people who work in the sector and tracked the size and scale and impact of the live comedy sector to the UK creative industries”.
UPDATE: It’s been confirmed that this session of the CMS Select Committee is happening on Tuesday 27 Apr.