SCOTTISH comedian Fern Brady will be hosting a BBC stand up special in support of the live comedy scene from a Glasgow venue.
Fern will host episode four of BBC Three's BBC Presents: Stand Up For Live Comedy, live from city venue Barras Arts and Design in the East End.
Fern, from Bathgate, said that the show is a lifeline for comics, many of whom have had all of their work cancelled since lockdown began in March.
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She said: "A lot of people don’t realise that, because of the coronavirus, many comedians have been out of work for four or five months.
"It’s a hard thing to get people to care about because, of course, lots of people have lost their jobs and I sometimes feel when I tell people I’m a stand-up they think I’m just saying it and really it’s just a hobby.
"Programmes like this will help make people realise it’s a legitimate industry and we can’t do our job without audiences.
"We’re getting more support from the BBC than the government, to be honest."
While the coronavirus pandemic wiped all future jobs from the book for Fran, the Bathgate comic kept busy over lockdown by creating podcast Wheel of Misfortune for BBC Sounds with pal and fellow comedian Alison Spittle.
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Stand Up For Live Comedy, which will also feature sets from comics Kimi Loughton, Toussaint Douglass and Andy Fiel, will mark the first live appearance for Fern in Glasgow since lockdown began.
She said: "I’ve gigged there a couple of times before but the main significance with Glasgow for me is that the day before lockdown happened I’d filmed my tour show as a special there.
"It nearly didn’t go ahead because the film crew were coming from America and they nearly got stuck, all that week we didn’t know if it was going to go ahead, then we filmed it and the very next day I lost all my work because of the pandemic.
"So it was cool to be going back up to Glasgow. It was like coming full circle to go back there to do a TV show."
BBC Presents: Stand Up For Live Comedy will be available to watch this Friday on BBC iPlayer, and on BBC One on Monday at 10:45pm.
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