Past Events & Media

Featuring the fantastic:

Ian Redfearn

Nathan Williams

Eve Coppersthwaite

Phillip Carter

Luke Chaplin

Rick Crawford

Compere for the event was Tony Kinsella and music was provided by Neal McBride

Photos form the event can be found here

Poster for BCM40: LIGHT
Poster for the next show

Cam McLeod jumped into Erika shoes and knocked it out of the park with his comparing. Fran Canning Brought his Hip-Hop-Brit-Pop stylings to round of each half with a lively music set.

Gerard Devney- A smooth audience operator

Jackie Haynes- Cheesy masterpieces

Joe Mickleburgh- Having nun of it

Julia Kasmire- Trained in the art of funny

Julian Tait- He’s got your number

Chris Roberts- Making an Impact

Our first event of 2022, live and in person! From the kings’ arms in Salford we welcome…

Compare Vince Atta

Caroline Jones – Sociologist

Rachelle Strange – Journalist

Jo Fletcher-Saxon – Podcaster and educational researcher

John Lean – Accidentally meaningful

Michaela Clarke – Quasi-historian

Grant Curnow – putting the IT into English Lit

and music from Sally Cinnamon

Poster for BCM39 - Signals

Bright Club Manchester 34 – Reboot

7th February 2019- The Kings Arms

Bright Club Manchester Rebooted their new year in our old home with a brand new set of performers.

Chris Kehoe returned in compare mode to shepard in our new set of performers. Chris Tavener  brought his wonderful musical act to close out each half.

Kirsty Styles- Has she got news for you

Melanie Ashcroft- Teaching funny

Anna Beukenhorst- Diagnosing your funny bone

Kevin Baker- He studies the old ones and the good ones

Francesco Camagni- Funny in any language

Benjamin Esse- Causing eruptions of laughter

All performances are uploaded to our  YouTube channel.

Bright Club Manchester 33 – The Big One

19th October 2018- The Bread Shed

Bright Club Manchester tied off 2018 with a blow out show as part of the Manchester Science Festival with our biggest show in a very very long time. Our sold out 180+ audience joined us as we celebrated some of our favourite performers from the past and brought back one of our most talented compares.

Poster for The Big One. Lists full line-up, including Ella Al-Shamahi, Chris Kehoe and Silky.

Silky stepped up to the plate as both our compare and musical act raising the roof both ends of the show.

Sophie Ward

Ciara Kelly

David Williams

Luke Chaplin

Shalaka Kurup

AND

Ella Al-Shamahi

All performances are uploaded to our  YouTube channel.

 

Bright Club Manchester 32 – Since When?

5th April 2018- The Bread Shed

Bright Club Manchester kicked off 2018 with a buster show with the Manchester History of Science conference. A packed audience of 100 people were treated to our biggest show for a very long time featuring acts old and new.

Poster for "Since When?" A figure from the Bayeux Tapestry is doing stand-up comedy

Denee Cassidy makes her Brigth Club début for our first show at the new venue. She did a fantastic job introducing our six amazing acts:

Maria Arruda – Diplomatically known as a lady of many talents

Iain Sturges – A gaslight of brilliance in the dark

Erin Beeston – Trained in the history of the steam railway

David Steele – Keeping it clean despite all the talk of bacteria

Shalaka Kurup – Struggling with inefficiency

Joshua Griffiths – Guiding us through the murky waters of oceanography

plus, music from our very favourite Ruth Cockburn

All the performances should be uploaded to our  YouTube Channel some time soon. Watch this space for developments.

Bright Club Manchester 31 – Crackers!

7th December 2017- The Kings Arms

Bright Club Manchester brought 2017 to an end with a big festive blow-off show. A packed crowd joined us as six first time performers and Bright Club alumni Ben Stutchbury knocked our Christmas socks off.

Ben Stutchbury made his compare début for the show and did a fantastic job introducing our six amazing acts:

John Lean – Games master and all round playful character

Tamsin Brown – Science communicator like no other

Luke Chaplin – The king of comed-A.I

Alex Carruthers – Our very own Man of Steel

Chris Pomery – Literary lawman

Owen Lynch – The fish whisperer

plus, music from Nexus art cafe’s own Tom George

All the performances should be uploaded to our  YouTube Channel some time soon. Watch this space for developments.

Bright Club Manchester 30 – The Edge

6th July 2017- The Kings Arms

Bright Club Manchester has joined in with the Greater Manchester Fringe Festival to show just how cutting edge we can be.

Poster for Bright Club Manchester - The Edge

Our host Sean Moran will bring you six hilarious researchers:

Jamal Kinsella – Human response to vibration

Julia Steinberger – Environmental economics

Graeme Hayes – Sustainable innovation

Sophie Ward – Neuroscience

Bobby Innes – Multisensory decision making

Kat Kjellström Corbet – Practical personal development

plus, music from the awesome Steve O’Donoghue

All the performances from the show can be seen on our YouTube Channel and a review of the show can be found here.

“It was a treat to witness clearly highly intelligent individuals step out of their comfort zones and deliver unashamedly niche references which somehow remained amusing to the layman.”

                                                                                         – John Holden (Nowthen Magazine)

Bright Club Manchester 29 – Disaster

30th March 2017- The Kings Arms

Setting up shop at the Kings Arms this was certainly the most disastrous Bright Club ever.  That’s a good thing.  Honest.

A purple poster, with a cute volcano.

Our compere Toby Hadoke – of XS Malarkey Fame – presented:

Ben Esse – Volcanoes

David Williams – Tsunamis

Freyja Peters – Comic book buildings

Jonathan Swinton – Computers doing life

Conor Walsh – Climate change

Heather Eyre – Radioactive wee

Providing a soundtrack for the night were the comedy gems of Ruth Cockburn.

All the performances from the show can be seen on our YouTube channel.

Bright Club Manchester 28 – Climax

9th December 2016- The Kings Arms

The days were getting shorter, the nights were drawing in and there were only 16 more sleep until Christmas. Bright Club Manchester was back at the Kings Arms for our climactic end-of-year show.

Climax poster

Our compere, the Comedy Store’s own Chris Kehoe, was on hand to introduced a whole new bunch of bunch of funny, clever people:

Ciara Kelly – work psychologist

Katie Walwyn-Brown – immunologist

Christopher Roberts – corrosion scientist

Philip Thomas – nano-scale light… ist?

Sally Penni – barrister at law

Rory Southworth – product designer

Closing out the event was music from the awesome Eliza P.

All the performances from the show can be seen on our YouTube page.

Bright Club Manchester 27 – Histories 3

8th June 2016- The Union, MMU

There is a great sense of Deja vu about this show despite our lack of clear records. It might be because Bright Club Manchester was taking part in the Manchester Histories Festival for the third time.

Our compere Alex Hall introduced:

Ella Al-Shamahi – Paleoanthropologist

Nathan Tauger – Historian

Harriet Palfreyman – Another Historian – it is the theme!

David Mitchell – Town Crier

Tony Kinsella – Professional Relic

Martin Salisbury – Law Man

Music was provided by the Rap-Rock-Synth-Funk of Publik Sektor.

Performances from the night can be relived time and again on our YouTube page.

 

Bright Club Manchester 26 – The Big One!

29th October 2015 – The Union, MMU

For Bright Club Manchester’s 25th anniversary show we decided to go big as a part of Manchester Science Festival.  How better to celebrate than to Bring together some of our best and most popular acts, all together, on one big stage.

Kiri Pritchard McLean presents this Festival edition, chock full of stars from recent Bright Clubs, specially chosen to guarantee a hilarious and enlightening night out.  We have

Sarita Robinson – Dr Survival

Cat Tennick – Dr Stabby

Ben Stutchbury – cell biologist

Lisa Heaney – neuroscientist

Jess Van Horssen – historian (Yes! Historian!)

Sophie Haslett – atmospheric chemist

and the awesome music of Eleanor Morton.

Highlights from the show are available on our YouTube page.

Bright Club Manchester 25 – Pieces 

11th June 2015 – Nexus’ new exhibition

Its was our 25th show! and Bright Club Manchester went entirely to pieces over at Nexus’s new exhibition.  Our hot new researchers sliced and diced comedy with neuroscience, sociology and many more moving parts.

Poster for BCM25

Putting all our pieces in play we had Steve Cross, comedy guru and the founder of the very first Bright Club in London. Our fabulous line-up consisted of;

Lisa Heaney

Chella Quint

Sarita Robinson

Robert Ludlow

Dave Calvey

Cat Tennick

and the music of Gideon Conn,

Steve Cross at the Bloomsbury Theatre

Steve Cross at the Bloomsbury Theatre
Photo by Ed Moore

Bright Club Manchester 24 – New Beginnings 

29th January 2015- Nexus Art Cafe

To welcome in the new year Bright Club Manchester decided to start afresh, join a gym, drink less and get a solid eight hours sleep a night. OK so we didn’t manage that too well but we did put on a stonking January show dedicated to thinking about starting anew with a fresh roster of researchers.

The compere Andrew Taylor introduced our new batch of performers ready to share stories of re-birth, re-branding, and realisation that the world around us is constantly changing;

Sophie Haslett – a breath of fresh air

Ben Stutchbury – old dogs, new tricks

Kelly Pickard-Smith – new experiences

Narinder Mann – new career

Christina Smith – new observations

David Price – new flavours

…with music from Hawker Reunion.

 

Bright Club Manchester 23 – Dimensions

30th October 2014 – MMU union

Bright Club Manchester entered new dimensions in this blockbuster festival edition of the stand-up comedy night with a difference.

Poster for the next event

Silky  (“Funny and clever”- Tim Minchin) compered a night designed to bring together some of the best and brightest acts from our past shows for this dazzling spectacular;

Alison “Bones” Atkin

Ben “Brains” Ambridge

Gavin “Transporter” Coupe

Mark “Gravity” Purver

Joe “Spacey” Zuntz

Hannah “Sex Historian” Kershaw

Closed off with a round of comedy songs by the ever hilarious Ben Champion.

Videos from the show can be found on our YouTube page.

Hannah Kershaw on stage

Bright Club Manchester 22 – Ideas

12 June 2014- the Deaf Institute.

Big, small, new, old; ideas make the world go around and there was plenty  to think and laugh about, at this special event for Universities Week.

BCM 22 Ideas Poster - Final Final

Dave Williams, regular MC for the Comedy Store,  compered a line up of some of the finest and funniest minds around:

Liz Granger – biowoman;

James Sumner – historian of science;

Charlotte Wildman – historian of everything;

Emily Prestwood – energy investigator;

Katie Steckles – multicoloured mathematician;

atomic Matt Gunther.

All capped off with the musical antics of Pyjama Party.

Gunth_3 (1)

Videos from the show can be found on our YouTube page.

Bright Club Manchester 20 – Anticipation

5th December 2013- Nexus art cafe.

In the build-up to the festive season, join university researchers and other brainy types as they interpret the theme if Anticipation in funny and unexpected ways.

Bright Club Manchester 18 – Monster

31st October 2013- Gorilla

A special Halloween show from Bright Club Manchester focusing on all things ghoulish. All performances can be watched again and again to your hearts content at our YouTube channel.