Hastings Comedy Festival Comedy Nights

Join us for the first comedy night of our winter comedy programme at the White Rock Theatre Studio. Live stand up from Angela Barnes and Booby Mair hosted by Peter Rethinasamy. Angela Barnes swapped a career in health and social care for stand-up in 2010 and hasn’t looked back. Within just a couple of years she had won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2011 and toured around the country with her stand-up shows. She returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022 with a brand-new show called Hot Mess, which will go on to tour nationwide in 2023. Angela has starred in BBC Two’s Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo, House of Games, and Hypothetical on Dave. She is a firm favourite on BBC Radio 4, having featured on The Now Show and The News Quiz – including a recent stint as the host. She has also hosted BBC Radio 4 Extra’s Newsjack. Angela co-hosts the less-than-serious popular podcast We Are History (Acast) with John O’Farrell. The two history nerds discuss, explain, and laugh at interesting and quirky episodes from the olden days. Originally from Canada, Bobby Mair is a uniquely talented stand up comedian that can set any comedy room ablaze. Winner of multiple comedy competitions, Bobby has opened for global touring comedians, including Bill Burr, Bill Maher, and Doug Stanhope. Since moving to the UK, he has established himself as a stand out headliner with many TV appearances, including Roast Battle (Comedy Central), 8 Out of 10 Cats (Channel 4) and Russell Howard’s Good News (BBC Three). He was also the host of the reality horror show, Killer Camp (ITV2), and starred in the reality sitcom, Bobby and Harriet: Get Married (Vice). Born and raised in Belfast to a Malaysian father and Irish mother, Peter Rethinasamy is a comedian with hard hitting, punchy jokes and hilarious tales of growing up in Northern Ireland. Since he started performing stand up, he has reached the semi-finals of the Laughing Horse New Act Competition and won the London Comedy Store’s King Gong Competition. He is also resident MC at Fulham Comedy Club and cementing himself as a must-see act on the circuit. Combining his love of comedy writing and acting (he was a member of the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain) Peter has been creating funny sketches for Instagram and TikTok. He is soon to be seen on Comedy Central Live in March and has supported Seann Walsh and Kerry Godliman on tour around the UK.