Black Country businesses wanted to host the Funny Things Joke Box

Wolverhampton’s comedy festival makes its return in 2019 to bring giggles, guffaws and lols to a venue near you - and they are looking for your help.

Locally-based businesses are wanted to host the new Funny Things Joke Box at their premises. The festival team are looking to find 365 jokes, over the next 12 months, to put together the ultimate Black Country Joke Book.

“All you need to do is host our Funny Things Joke Box for a week and pop it in a prominent place where your staff and/or customers will see it. Then encourage them to take part in the festival by entering a joke and paying £1 to be entered in to a prize draw.” Comments Festival producer, Jenny Smith.

The first joke entered was by Black Country Chamber Chief Executive Corin Crane.

Mr Crane said: “It’s great to support Wolverhampton’s new comedy Festival Funny Things. Culture projects like this generate £950m a year to the Black Country economy and we’re thrilled to get behind projects that have a positive impact on the region. And we’re more than happy to help prove that Wolverhampton is a happy place”.

In 2017 reports from the Office for National Statistics stated that Wolverhampton was the unhappiest place in the UK, so Creative Black Country took up the challenge to prove how wrong they were.

What resulted was a celebration of Black Country humour. Funny Things brought together a range of local and national partners and artists, to produce a festival ranging from household names to new talent, exhibitions and comedy film, theatre and family activities, artist commissions, a festival band and a joke flashmob.

With a year to go until the next festival the team are looking for the business community to get involved with a number of fun initiatives. “As well as the Joke Box we’re organising an April Fools Fancy Dress Day.” Says Jenny Smith.

“We are aware of the positive benefits of laughter on Mental Health and we’d love to encourage the Black Country business community to inspire their staff to get involved in any way they can”.

Prizes for the best Jokes entered in to the Joke Box will include free tickets to festival events. Each month a winner will be drawn from the travelling Joke Box and there will also be a prize for the business that collects the most jokes. The jokes will be shared on the festival’s website funny-things.co.uk. All proceeds from the Joke Box will go towards providing tickets to the festival for people from Wolverhampton’s most disadvantaged communities, offering the opportunity to escape all the pressures of everyday life for a time and have a laugh.

The Joke Box will be available January to October 2019.

To book in your week with the Joke Box please contact Jenny Smith on funnythingswolves@gmail.com or call 07967 187822.

Laugh out loud in Wolverhampton in 2019 with plenty of chuckles, giggles, smirks, sniggers and guffaws on offer.

The line-up will be announced in Spring 2019 on the festival website at funny-thing.co.uk.