Oxford-based comedy club Jericho Comedy is setting up a live show on water on 20th August.

The audience will be seated on boats floating on the river Cherwell. Jericho have been adaptable coming out of lockdown running open air and drive in comedy shows to embrace social distancing and to ensure audience members are as safe as possible, now they have set their sights on putting on a floating comedy club to provide social distancing on boats. 

“It has really been a challenge performing during the pandemic, but as soon as we worked out the safest ways to put on shows we started running drive ins, moving on to open air shows, and now we can’t wait to perform from a river. It has been a joy to get comedians working safely and in front of audiences in much need of a laugh in these uncertain times,” says organiser Harry Househam.

Audience members will have a boat for each household, with spare boats used as walkways and natural barriers for social distancing. As well as boats to be seated on there are tables on dry land for any landlubbers without their sea legs all whilst comedians will perform from the river on a floating stage.

Not to be confused with a virtual live stream comedy show, this event is a live comedy show taking place on a stream. The organisers promise there will be plenty of jokes to float everyone’s boat. "It has been heavily suggested we should get hecklers to walk the plank, and if comedians aren’t having a good set it really is a case of sink or swim,” says Harry Househam. “Punters can expect an excellent award winning line-up of comedians to be enjoyed in the atmospheric setting of boats tethered along the river Cherwell as the sun sets” “This is maybe the most summery and incredibly Oxford way to enjoy an evening of open air comedy”

The event dubbed ‘live stream’ or ‘punting comedy’ will be the only floating comedy club in the UK this summer. 

The venue is the Cherwell boathouse, one of the few locations in Oxford that offers punting, the traditional leisure activity of Oxford and Cambridge. It is these traditional punts that audience will be seated on. A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in shallow rivers where the ‘punter' generally propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole, a bit like venetian gondolas. 

Jericho Comedy is an award winning comedy club based in Oxfordshire, having won national comedy awards “Top 6 comedy clubs in the UK” Chortle 2019 & 2020, as well as having been featured on BBC Radio Xtra’s ‘The Circuit’ showcasing the UKs most exciting independent comedy venues, and having been recommended by the Sunday Times. 

As well as putting comedy on punts this summer Jericho Comedy have partnered nationally with Suzuki’s ‘@thedrivein' and Sandon Hall’s 'Great British Drive in' to present drive in comedy across the UK from Oxford to Staffordshire, Edinburgh, Manchester, Brighton, Bristol, London, Leeds, Liverpool, Southampton, Glasgow, Cardiff and more. Comedians performing over the last few months at drive ins and open air shows have included Marcus Brigstocke, Pierre Novellie, Cally Beaton, Ahir Shah, Olga Koch, Andrew Maxwell, Rosie Jones, Ian Smith, Lauren Pattison, Ivo Graham, Rachel Parris and more 

More locally they are putting on open air shows at the Oxford Artisan Distillery in Oxford (as featured on the Apprectice) and drive in shows at Millet’s Farm, Oxfordshire, with tickets having just got online for their floating show on August 20th.

Info and tickets here.