Southport Comedy Festival 2026: 17 Nights in a Tent and One Woman on the Poster

The Southport Comedy Festival ran its 15th edition from October 2 to October 18 in a heated, seated marquee in Victoria Park, the same park that hosts the Southport Flower Show. So for most of the year the field belongs to roses, and for 17 days in October it belongs to men in their fifties talking about their knees. Some would call that a step down. The roses never sold out a Sunday matinee.

Jason Byrne opened on the 2nd with a show called 30 Years Byrning, and the bill after him read like a list of everyone a British parent has seen on a panel show. Paul Sinha, of ITV's The Chase, marked thirty years in stand-up. Jason Manford did a matinee and an evening on the 4th. Henning Wehn brought Acid Wehn, Gary Delaney brought Gary On Laughing, Mike Wozniak, Scott Bennett and Jimeoin came through, and Adam Kay did This Is Going To Hurt, a title that sounds like a warning and was in fact a warning, years ago, about the NHS. Nobody listened then either, but at least this time they paid £25.50 for the privilege.

Paul Merton and Suki Webster did their improv show on the 10th. Webster, Chortle pointed out before the festival opened, was the only woman in the announced lineup. The festival answered that Hayley Ellis was supporting Manford, that Laura Smyth had been due but rescheduled her tour, and that two of the eight new-act finalists were women. That is three answers, and every one of them is the comedy-booking version of saying some of your best friends are women. One of them is in the opening slot, one of them is on another tour, and two of them are competing for £300.

Which brings us to the part comics actually read. The Southport New Comedian of the Year final was October 3, eight acts, £8 a ticket, sponsored for a fifth year by Dragon Soop, a canned drink that I am told is popular with people who want to stay up late and regret it. The festival says more than 100 comics applied nationwide for those eight spots. Jack Wood, a Manchester comedian, won the trophy and the £300. Adam Anwar was second and Kie Carson third. The judging panel included the drink's marketing manager, an accountant, the general manager of the flower show and a magician, which is a fairer jury than most comics get at an open mic, where the jury is a man eating chips.

After that the festival wound down on the homey end: a Best of the Fest night hosted by director Brendan Riley with Steve Gribbin, Clayton Jones and Brennan Reece, a 90s Comedy Bingo whose raffle went to the local charity Bebe's Hive, then Mick Miller on the Sunday afternoon and Seann Walsh, with a show called This Is Torture, to close it out that night. Ending a festival on a show called This Is Torture takes either great confidence or no review copies, and as far as I can find, nobody published one.

That's the honest state of the coverage. I found previews, lineups and the festival's own partner announcements, but no independent reviews of a single 2026 show. So I can't tell you who killed in the tent, and I'm not going to make it up. All I can tell you is that it went for 17 days and nobody has reported the tent coming down, which is more than a lot of festivals can say.

Should you submit? Southport isn't a place to get discovered by a network. It's a big, well-run regional festival booked on touring names, with one real door for unknowns, the new-comedian contest. The organisers haven't published a fee, a deadline or a 2027 call yet, and £300 won't cover the train to Southport and back very many times. But a final in front of a paying crowd in a full marquee beats a lot of what a new act gets. Keep an eye on the festival site for next year's call.

A town is known by its festival, and a festival is known by who it leaves off the poster. Southport put on 17 nights of comedy and found room for one woman to headline, standing next to her husband. A crowd will forgive a booker nearly anything. The trouble starts when somebody writes it down.