‘We got an obscene amount of money from Jack Whitehall’: the Frog and Bucket on comedy after Covid
The Frog and Bucket comedy club in Manchester was the subject of an outcry that became a notable fund-raising campaign last October when it emerged that it hadn’t benefited from the ￡1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund.
Though not as high-profile as the Comedy Store, its list of alumni (the likes of John Bishop, Peter Kay, Jason Manford and Sarah Millican) indicates how instrumental it has been in boosting British stand-up since it first opened in 1994. The rejection letter – alluding to “whether your organisation is culturally significant” – considerably rankled with its general manager Jessica Toomey.
When she went public – describing it as “two fingers up at the northern comedy again” – and numerous stars came out in force on social media, deriding the decision and supporting a fund-raising campaign, the sudden sound of a retreat could be heard.
As Toomey explains, “At that point the Arts Council reached out and said: 'Can we have a meeting?' They reassured me they had no doubt of our cultural significance. They asked us to go for a National Lottery Projects Grant, which we have been successful in getting.” What does that mean in financial terms? A crucial boost at the end of the year to the money raised via the fund-raising campaign, which – bolstered by “an obscene amount of money from Jack Whitehall”, who donated ￡6,000 last October, and another larger sum shortly after – swiftly reached ￡23,000.
“Between these two sources, I’ve got what I first asked for from the CRF – ￡60,000.” Factor in ongoing furloughing for the staff (18 in all), local authority support to mitigate the effect of restrictions and lockdown (￡3,000 a month, plus a top-up of ￡9,000), plus rate relief, and the threat of possible closure has lifted, for the while. “We’re fine to the end of April,” she says.
The furlough scheme has only been extended to that point, but Toomey – whose father founded the club when she was a teenager – is engaged in an application to the second round of the Culture Recovery Fund, aimed at helping organisations transition back to “a viable and sustainable operating model” between April and June. “The DCMS have said that there will be no social distancing from June – so we have to assume that, even if it’s hard to believe because it doesn't look like the government will have completed the vaccination programme by June.” Long before that, though, she’s anticipating a resumption of activity, initially online and then, all being well, live shows with social distancing from May.
She anticipates the streaming of stand-up shows from as early as February. “That Projects Grant money was specifically about taking out content online and diversifying our audiences.” The digital programme is yet to be announced but will include workshops and some audience-interactive material too. In terms of opening the doors, she has her eyes set on the period after Easter (April 4), with early May factored in as realistic.
“I think I will wait until April to programme it. I’ve booked and cancelled acts so many times over the past year, I can’t bring myself to do it again.” She cautions that there’s more industry guesswork than government guidance about the timetable. “It would be great to get a month’s head-up. After the first lockdown there was a clear pathway for the performing arts. This time we don’t know the exact markers we need to hit in order to reopen.”
“If I can open at a 50 per cent capacity, without curfews, we can make that work in the short term but I don’t want that to be the business model,” she continues. With its cabaret seating and kitchen, the club was equipped to serve meals – which became a requirement when the city moved into Tier 3 in late October. That proved a useful bonus – “We did get a bigger spend per customer” – but Toomey is still keen to see the back of the requirement.
As to whether there was a latent bias against northern comedy in the initial funding-decision – that debate can be parked, she believes, at least for the time being. “If the comedians hadn’t rallied we might have been left to sink. It will be interesting to see what happens with the new Culture Recovery Fund bid. I think if [the Arts Council] were in any doubt about the value of what we do, they understand it now. And it’s important to say that on the back of the campaign, they have been really supportive.”
In terms of booking acts, she doesn’t envisage being in short supply, but even so she can foresee some significant teething difficulties in getting the show back up and running. “A lot of very good comedians have retrained or found another job. When you first become a comedian you have to take such a leap in quitting a salaried job to living off the gigs. When you’re in your twenties you can take that risk. I’d say the cream of our industry now have families and/or mortgages. As things stand, it may take a long time before they’ve got enough work in the diary for them to acquire the confidence to leave those jobs. I think it’s going to be a year or two until the industry is what it used to be.”
As for new comedy material, she reckons that political, Covid-related comedy may not be what the doctor ordered. “Political comedy has often done well here – one of the best times for that was when we reopened after the [IRA] bomb. But I can’t help thinking that after 14 months of endless Covid, people will be sick of the sight and sound of it. I even feel we might see more sketch comedy because TikTok has been so huge during lockdown.”
Doubts remain, but overall the outlook is much better than when she spoke to the Telegraph in November. “We can weather the storm until we reopen. Then, as always, it’s going to be up to me to put in the hard graft to make sure we’re busy and successful.”