Next year’s Leicester Comedy Festival will have a strong focus on mental health it has been revealed, with a panel of comedians set to share their personal experiences.
Mental health charity, Lamp will host a free panel discussion at the 2023 Leicester Comedy Festival, which will see a selection of comedians share their personal experiences of comedy and its positive and negative impacts on their mental health.
The ‘Behind the Scenes: Comedy and Mental Health’ event will take place next February 18, at Leicester’s Attenborough Arts Centre.
The panel discussion aims to give an insight into the minds of comedians in a bid to encourage more conversations about mental health and for people to seek help and speak up when in need.
Input from everyone including comedians, stage performers, writers, venue staff, promoters, and audience members, is encouraged.
“Hosting the panel discussion next year is a great way to encourage the community to come together for some shared stress relief,” said Richard Kotulecki, Lamp’s CEO of the event.
“Laughter, as they say, is the best medicine and when it comes to mental health, sharing your laughter with loved ones and friends can significantly lift your spirits by reducing anxiety and depression, making you happier – plus, it’s a great way to build relationships.
“For the comedians, the process of talking and laughing about painful personal experiences takes honesty, courage, and the ability to set aside the usual comic bravado. This will enable the audience to feel a deeper connection with the performers.”
Geoff Rowe, Founder of the Leicester Comedy Festival added: “Whilst the festival is designed to be as much fun as possible, sometimes festivals like ours can be stressful and difficult for all sorts of reasons. This can have an impact on people attending the festival, but also on those comedians performing and people who work and volunteer for the event who often work long hours pulling things together.
“A few years ago, we developed the Leicester Comedy Festival Mental Health Toolkit, with support from Lamp, which is now freely available to all acts, promoters and venue staff who take part. Having the discussion event in 2023 will provide us all with an opportunity to think about mental health and how we can make things better for everyone during the 19-day festival.”
To find out more, visit: https://comedy-festival.co.uk/
