Inequality in Contemporary Stand-Up Comedy in the UK

This Pivot explores the cultural economy of comedy in the UK, looking specifically at the links between industry practices and structures and who produces comedy in the UK. The research is based on interviews with comedians in the East Midlands; significantly, this demographic has been historically under-researched in studies of precarity, where the East Midlands is typically overlooked in discussions of arts funding and access in favour of a more simplistic north/south divide narrative. Similarly, whilst there has been increased discussion of the precarity of the creative and cultural industries, as well as media articles on the difficulty of breaking into comedy as a member of a marginalised group, there has been relatively little academic research to support this. While Friedman’s work in particular has been helpful for understanding the link between comedy producers, class and taste making, there has been less attention paid to the sociologies of work within comedy. This book fillsthese gaps in research by exploring the experiences of comedians in the East Midlands, contributing to the rich body of scholarship on inequality in the cultural industries and promoting a better understanding of the impact of structural inequalities and precarity on access to the cultural industries.

Claire Sedgwick was awarded her PhD by De Montfort University, Leicester in 2017 and developed that research into a book: Feminist Media: From the Second Wave to the Digital Age that was published by Rowman and Littlefield International in 2020. In addition, she has a book chapter in Women’s Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain (2020). Her current project on The Cultural Economy of Comedy in the East Midlands on which this book project is based, was funded by a BA/ Leverhulme Small Research Grant.