The Feminist Comedy Nights started when Leena Kela, one of the curators of the Mad House, asked the comedian Jamie MacDonald about combining stand-up with feminism - could it work! "I imagined that maybe me and about six other people might be interested in both stand-up and feminist ideas, because let's face it, mainstream comedy is not very pro-feminist, and this turns a lot of audience members away. Jokes about women drivers are kind of old by now, and "homo!" is not really a punchline in my opinion," tells MacDonald. Jamie is a stand-up comedian working in English in Helsinki. He is Canadian, half-Finnish, half-Scottish, and a transgender man, so there's a lot of stuff to talk about. Jamie moved to Helsinki in 2002 and started doing
comedy in 2012, after years of working in experimental theatre and performance art.
"What we try to do at the Feminist Comedy Nights is get Finnish comedians to try material that's more progressive. There's jokes about gender,
sex, femininity, masculinity, politics - as well as anything else. I'm trying to build an audience as well as a performing culture that has
some different standards from the mainstream, and to give comedians a place to stretch their work a little. We were completely surprised with
the first two nights that they sold out incredibly quickly - there is a huge market in comedy for shows that are a little friendlier to women
and other people who would otherwise feel alienated by sexist, gay-bashing, or stereotypical material."
It's not always easy, too! If you're playing on the edge of good taste, sometimes you go over. The point is that stand-up comedy is always live,
always a little bit dangerous, and it's a beautiful art form to play with ideas. And the audience is as much a part of that as the comedian.
We'll have performers in English and Finnish (mostly Finnish). On February 12th Feminist Comedy Night puts on stage Kaisa
Pylkkänen, Heikki Multanen, Joonatan Pitkänen and Helena Pöllänen is a force to be reckoned with.
Feminist Comedy Night With Jamie MacDonald at Mad House 2016: 12.2., 25.3. ja 29.4. at 7 pm. Tickets 10 / 11,50 €, lippu.fi