Alternate comedy is thriving in Nottingham. And among the comedians leading that boom is Club Wormhole, very much a home for non-conventional humour. And with Wormhole Weekend coming up, now is a great time find out more...
We last looked at all things Wormhole a good year ago. What’s changed?
After last year’s wonderful Wormhole Weekend, we have put on another fabulous year of alternative comedy cabarets and we’ve only got more ambitious: from our panto production of Macbeth, to the Easter story through the medium of Die Hard, to a Wicked-style retelling of Jaws from the shark’s point of view. We’ve welcomed Edinburgh Award Winners Rob Copland and Joe Kent-Walters to the Club as well as many more of our favourite acts and we’ve settled into our new home at the lovely Fisher Gate Point.
And there’s a Wormhole Weekend coming up. What can the audience expect?
Wormhole Weekend (7-9 November) is a full weekend festival celebrating the absolute best of the UK alternative comedy scene. We have a huge showcase to kick off the Friday, followed by 15 more shows over the weekend from the most inventive, avant garde and hilarious acts in the country. All of it pushes the boundaries of comedy and none of it will be a guy talking about dating apps.
Can new comedians join Club Wormhole. How can they become part of the events?
We have guest acts on all of our monthly shows. If a new comedian would like to be part of it, shoot us a message on clubwormhole@gmail.com or on social media and we will add them to our booking lists.
The pies fell into the collider, the audience sending them around the room and into the faces of our unfortunate hosts
Is there much of an alternative comedy scene in Nottingham?
There is now! There wasn’t one before we started but over two years of Wormhole we have willed it into existence. We have a wonderful audience of regulars who are so up for the avant garde. And while not alternative in the same way, other nights are doing good and interesting things such as Benny Shakes’ Disabled Cants.
Who are Club Wormhole’s comedy ancestors? Who inspires your performers?
We have an illustrious lineage from clowns going back to ancient times, through vaudeville to Simon Munnery’s Cluub Zarasthustra in the 90s, The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society (still active) and Alt.Com.Cab in the 2010s, to Manchester’s Northwave scene and Sheffield’s Fish Pie more recently. It’s fantastic that we have Stan Skinny of Fish Pie, Sean Morley of Alt.Com.Cab and Northwave and Joz Norris of ACMS bringing their shows to Wormhole Weekend.
What is the craziest thing Club Wormhole has ever staged?
In Carry On Up The Wormhole, we had a relaxation class clashing with a build-your-own Large Hadron Collider class, both interrupted by a baking class. The pies fell into the collider, the audience sending them around the room and into the faces of our unfortunate hosts.
Any tips for anyone aspiring alternative comedians?
You don’t have to learn how to do ‘normal’ comedy before you move on to the alternative - just go with what you want to do. And remember that you give a night variety: audiences at regular comedy nights are often glad of something different to break up the stand-up.
Define Club Wormhole in a sentence.
Nottingham’s home of alternative comedy!
How do you see the future for Club Wormhole?
After Wormhole Weekend, our next show will be “A Christmas Carol’s The Muppets” in December, in which the characters from A Christmas Carol do their very best to put on a production of The Muppets. Continuing on, we want to keep fostering our community of weirdos and keep bringing the best of the country’s alternative comedy acts to Nottingham and keep pushing our ambition with the inventiveness of the hijinks we produce.
The incredible Wormhole Weekend runs from Friday 7 November until Sunday 9 November 2025.
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