Reading Comedy Festival, baby!

The Reading Comedy Festival kicks off on Friday, Sept. 21. It includes stand up and other comedy shows and plays. I'm psyched as comedy holds a special place in my heart dating back to my days of minor immersion in the U.S. comedy world by way of performing stand up (as a hobby), interviewing comics for newspapers and doing PR for comics (also as a hobby on the side of my "real" job as a journalist). My relationship with comedy is a bit love/hate, as once you've seen a lot of comedy, you spot the hacks much more quickly and it takes more to impress.

But comedy still holds a special place in my heart, and it's worth it to take advantage of seeing a few of these shows if you're in the Reading area. A couple that I'm looking forward to are:

• Insomnababble, Oct. 5
• Jo Caulfield and Friends, Oct. 18

There are many more shows, but as much British stand up isn't to my taste (or perhaps the universal problem that there are far more bad comics of any nationality than good ones), these are the couple that seemed they might appeal to me. Stay tuned for my take on some differences between U.S. and UK humor!