Karen Koren: Festival will be a league of nations

IT’S been a lovely September so far but the nights are fair drawing in now, as they say. The shops are filled with Hallowe’en merchandise and I have even seen Christmas decorations already. It starts earlier and earlier every year.

Dylan Moran. Pic: Comp

I know when autumn has arrived because that is when I have to go to Norway to close up the summer cottage. It is sad when we have to close everything for the harsh winter ahead, but it has to be done as the Norwegian winters are a lot harder than any of ours here.

I will be flying into Oslo and staying over for a night to catch up with the comedy scene there. There is a very healthy stand-up circuit in Scandinavia and I have taken a good few comics there over the years, including Jo Brand, Bill Bailey, Tim Minchin, Stephen K Amos, Glenn Wool, Jarred Christmas, Zoe Lyons and a good few others

I am going to meet with promoters from Bergen and Oslo who came over for our Festival and enjoyed lots of shows at the Fringe. We are going to discuss having a more regular flow of Fringe comics to Bergen and Oslo.

I already have a good relationship with the comedy promoter in Stavanger, so hopefully this will be the beginning of English-speaking comedians being part of regular Norwegian stand-up comedy nights.

They will get a week’s trip to Norway every month and I will also look at bringing good English- speaking Norwegian comedians to the Festival in August.

English is taught in schools from an early age and is second nature for many. It’s much harder though, to make people laugh in another language.

Both Eddie Izzard and Dylan Moran, pictgured, have been performing stand- up in Russia and Eastern Europe for a good few years now. Dylan introduced a Russian stand-up to the Festival recently. It won’t be long before we have many more nationalities performing in the Capital.

The more the merrier.