Cold weather. Rain. Long nights and short days. Christmas bills falling due. Newspapers full of advice on exercise and diet regimes you’ll never follow, and that don’t look much fun anyway. January is tough, a gloomy month that reaches its nadir on 19 January, a.k.a. Blue Monday, so named because it’s said to be the year’s most miserable day.

But help is at hand. On 15 January, the Bristol Comedy Festival returns with its promise of laughter and good company. “Bristol has always been phenomenal at producing comedy talent,” says the festival’s co-founder, standup Harry Allmark. “Blending that scene with regional acts coming up on fringe circuits and big TV names, and putting them all together across the city centre, will cheer everyone up.”

Although precise details of who’s appearing where and when at the festival were still being confirmed as nearfield went to press, headliners will include the self-deprecating Mark Watson and the gurt flamboyant Jayde Adams, both of whom hail from the city. But, as Allmark has hinted, the festival isn’t just about famous names, it’s about turning Bristol into a kind of giant comedy club over 17 days at a time of year when we need this most. 

Venues including The Gaffe Comedy Club and Strange Brew, arguably the city’s most welcoming space, will host events, as will St George’s Bristol – more readily associated with classical music but, according to Allmark, “a beautiful venue that really does work for comedy”. 

This is a grand vision – and one that’s maybe at odds with the festival’s profile. That’s not too surprising. First held in January 2025, it is a cheeky upstart addition to the city’s cultural calendar, founded after Allmark and fellow standup Burt Williamson approached Bristol Business Improvement District (BID) for help funding a competition for up-and-coming comics at the Bristol Folk House.

Metaphorically, at least, the people at BID – an organisation working to improve the city centre – suggested the duo buck up their ideas. “They asked us if we would be interested in putting on a wider festival,” Allmark says, “which we were absolutely thrilled about.” Initially, the relatively modest aim was to sell 1,000 tickets across two venues. 

As things turned out, the festival quickly grew to encompass around 30 venues and shifted 6,500 tickets. Those topping the bill included Stuart Goldsmith, both a working standup and host of the hit Comedian’s Comedian podcast, and the Welsh-Indian Priya Hall, whose act veers between warm storytelling and excruciating over-sharing. “It was insane; we had a lovely time,” Allmark adds.

Many of the venues hosting comedians were not places you would readily associate with comedy. Allmark and his co-organisers made a virtue of this by being imaginative in their approach, as at Averys Wine Merchants. “The onsite sommelier would get a write-up about the comedians performing,” remembers Allmark, “and then pair them with the wine they thought would go with their act and their vibe.”

On King Street, home to Bristol Old Vic and historic pubs such as the Llandoger Trow, the festival organised a takeover of its bars and restaurants – a madcap day run from a table in the nearby Granary Club. Sabrina Shutter, senior project events manager at Bristol BID, whose work involves connecting local businesses with the festival, headed down. “It was brilliant, it was chaotic and people feel that,” she remembers. “You sit in a venue and you see the comedians running in, you see them a bit stressed, but it’s funny.”

Organising these kinds of shows involved a steep learning curve. “We would walk into rooms and figure out exactly how we could make it work for comedy without thinking about the logistics,” says Allmark, “like how we were going to get chairs across the centre.” This hasn’t put him off. Indeed, all concerned with the festival are actively trying to think of new spaces to host comedy, the quirkier the better. “You could do lunchtime comedy or a gig after work in an office,” says Shutter – or use a bookstore to riff off the fact “there are certain comedians that are also writers”.

Longer term, Allmark sees the Bristol Comedy Festival as helping to nurture what’s already a healthy local scene – and one that extends beyond Bristol to comedy clubs in Bath and Frome, and to events such as Somerset’s Rode Comedy Festival. 

Allmark also hopes that, as the industry descends on Bristol every January, the festival will help up-and-coming comedians in developing careers. “Someone who might have been performing at the festival last year, doing a work-in-progress, what do they look like in four years’ time?” he says. “Have they made a TV debut? Have they won a competition? Are they returning on tour? Watching people grow over the years is going to be exciting.”