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Kemah Bob’s face lights up when they tell me about their “passion project that has got really out of hand”. In 2018, the Texan standup created FOC It Up, a comedy club for femmes of colour, after wanting to work with more people of colour “that weren’t dudes”. “It really was that simple,” they grin. Starting as an hour-long slot within a festival run by the cabaret company The Cocoa Butter Club, it has grown into a nurturing space for many comedians: they’ve hosted countless mixed-bill comedy nights, launched a podcast and taken shows to the Edinburgh fringe. “I wanted to have a space that felt different – warm and inclusive,” says Bob. “Not in a performative way. In the way that’s like: they’re all here, and that’s really cool.”
Not one to stand still, Bob is preparing for the club’s biggest event yet – a full day of workshops, masterclasses and networking opportunities, finishing with a “banging” comedy show at Soho theatre. Bob laughs when announcing the event’s name: “FOC Fest! It is just so cheeky.”
“Before I started doing comedy, I wasn’t really sure of myself … I want other people to have access to that. It’s a pretty sick job,” Bob says. But the festival is not solely aimed at aspiring comedians. “Using humour to reclaim yourself and laugh at difficult things is a great tool for everyone.” Over the course of the day, there are sessions including a standup masterclass for trans and queer people, a workshop that teaches participants to navigate “big feelings” through comedy, as well as industry panels with guests including Nana Hughes and Julia McKenzie.
While the workshops and panels are open to everyone, Bob adds, “white audience members are encouraged to check their privilege at the door”. Making the day accessible for FOC It Up’s target audience is a primary concern: “So while we welcome other people to come along and take part, it’s not actually built for them, you know? … I hope people get that.”
Bob has wanted to put on “an event bigger than our usual shows” for years but it has been an “exhausting” battle to get here. Despite Bob being a prominent voice in UK comedy for nearly a decade, the club still operates without any funding. “We have no financial backing; we are literally just using the extra of what we’ve made, because there’s no money in live events at the scale we operate.”
After just an hour in their company, Bob’s work ethic is clear. They mention the companies they’ve reached out to for sponsorship – “it’s not been in anyone’s budget” – and the funding schemes they’ve written lengthy applications for. “It feels like it is less worth it to put money behind initiatives like ours, whereas a few years ago it might have been more of a priority.” Still, they hope that the festival will be a strong example of what they have to offer. “I really do feel the potential of it, as a platform and as a movement.”
Have things changed since Bob launched the club in 2018? While it’s now less common to be the only femme of colour on a comedy bill, Bob says there is still a lot of room for progress. The death of George Floyd in 2020 “performatively” changed things for a while: “All of a sudden I went from having no TV work to loads of it,” they say. “But as quickly as that became important, it lost its importance when all the performative activism had been achieved … it kind of speaks to the fact that people still see our voices as a trend, right?”
Still, Bob’s dreams for the club are sky high; they dream of it becoming an international institution. “It would be so cool if we could have artists [on our bills] from New York or artists from India or Berlin, like a cross-pollination,” they say. Bob would love for it to keep expanding into larger spaces and to be a source of support for other comedians who want to fund their own work, too. “This is the first FOC Fest, but it is certainly not going to be the last,” Bob says. “The talent within our community is endless – and the hunger for this is boundless.”
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FOC Fest is at Soho theatre, London, on 18 April
