Back British Comedy

The short version

The full letter, with four annexes of evidence, is below. If you work in comedy and have sixty seconds, this is what it asks for.

38.4%of the Edinburgh Fringe is comedy — 1,077,271 tickets. Public funding reinvested into comedy: £0
0.003%comedy's share of the £16.7bn DCMS and UKRI hand out each year
£0attributed to comedy in Arts Council England's £946.9m last year — funded within it, never counted
63%of the comedy workforce earns under £30,000 a year

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¶The full letterAs sent to the Prime Minister, Chancellor, Secretaries of State and Minister · 17 September 2026

The Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, Prime Minister The Chancellor of the Exchequer and Ministers of HM Treasury · The Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport · The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care · The Secretary of State for Education · The Rt Hon Jonathan Reynolds MP, Secretary of State for Business and Trade and Government Co-Chair of the Creative Industries Council · Ian Murray MP, Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts

Urgent · Ahead of the Budget, 28 October 2026

Comedy is at risk. This Budget matters to its survival.Comedy's inclusion in the Budget — tax reform, classification, named recognition, and investment in comedy education, health and innovation.

Thursday 17 September 2026

Dear Prime Minister, Chancellor, Secretaries of State and Minister,

In every national crisis, comedy shows up. The comedy sector is in crisis now, and is asking for your help: can you show up to save one of Britain's greatest economic, cultural and healthcare assets?

We are the UK comedy industry — a serious business ecosystem and artform spanning live, broadcast, streaming, digital, and visual and illustrative comedy, and the surrounding businesses — serving audiences and communities across Britain and around the world. We are writing to ask, again and urgently, for comedy to be seen beyond the jokes: that our representations be given full consideration in October's Autumn Budget and for a joint meeting with CRAFT ahead of the budget announcement.

Our asks are specific. The annexes below set out (i) where comedy is excluded, (ii) the measures we are asking for, (iii) a brief overview of our requests made, and (iv) what inclusion looks like where other sectors have already done it.

Tax reform, in the Autumn Budget 2026.
Classification, so comedy can be counted.
Named recognition, where comedy becomes an artform and category, not a genre.
Funding, across departments for culture, education, creative healthcare and innovation.
A meeting before the Budget announcement, and an impact assessment.

British comedy is a paradox.

Comedy is one of our major economies, generating trillions in views, billions in revenue, and millions in tax — yet little of it is reinvested to flywheel more of it, which stifles economic growth, innovation and opportunities. Unlike other major industries, including music, theatre and museums, comedy does not have intergenerational patronage — it's an industry born from the working class, made up of individuals working in isolation. The sector has been commercially resilient precisely because it has had to be. That resilience is now running out. Britain cannot rely solely on household names and major brands to sustain comedy without supporting the underlying grassroots sector, as is done for other creative industries. This is an especially urgent matter in an AI-accelerated era where the sector's work has been misappropriated and jobs are being replaced in multiple categories including voiceover, scriptwriting and research. Investing in creative healthcare, education and innovation creates new professions and sustainable careers, especially if the tax system and public investment supports it.

Comedy is everywhere in British culture and nowhere in British policy.

Comedy is one of the UK's most-consumed artforms across live performance, podcasts, digital video, TV and film — and a proven export, with some of the biggest talents and brands in the world. It also runs deeper into national life than any framework recognises: British satire and political cartooning hold power to account, and, in a polarised world, the UK largely supports freedom of artistic expression in the comedic arts. The BBC puts it plainly: British humour is as much a part of the UK's cultural export and soft power as music, the monarchy and Sir David Attenborough. Their research found that “humour” is the word most associated with British shows and films of any category.

Comedy contributes far beyond the laughs. It sustains thousands of grassroots SMEs, drives local spend, and supports the night-time economy. The UK's top two comedy festivals delivered around £45 million in net benefit to Britain in 2026. Comedy pays in through VAT, income tax, National Insurance, business rates and corporation tax — and it cannot draw out, because it appears in none of the classifications, reliefs or frameworks that would let it.

Comedy supports communities and venues everywhere, including the hard-to-reach areas the Government has targeted for increasing access to the arts. It is uniquely accessible and it confronts social inequalities. Like music, comedy is more than entertainment: it is evidence-based healthcare, it connects people, and it sits at the heart of our communities. Comedy keeps Britain likeable and drives social change — and it even helps politicians, whether they are wearing red, green, blue, black, or dark blue, actually.

Mind the gap: comedy's systematic exclusion in existing frameworks.

While British statecraft champions creative inclusion, comedy remains the industry's unassigned asset that has never been uniquely assessed for its individual category characteristics and needs.

It regularly surprises parliamentarians that comedy is not a recognised artform, nor specifically named within the frameworks of the Arts Councils, NHS social prescribing schemes, UK Research and Innovation, the Charity Commission, the British Council and other key institutions. It is not classified and directly supported in HM Treasury systems, and has never been given a seat on the Creative Industries Council since its formation in 2011 — nor on the new Creative Trade Forum.

Downstream, this has resulted in comedy remaining unlisted or omitted from the tax credits and reliefs, and the very reports and funding frameworks that shape the economy, including the Creative Industries Sector Plan and the Copyright and AI consultations. Sadly, these lists are not exhaustive — and a sector that is invisible in the data cannot be supported by policy, cannot be included in trade promotion, and cannot access the funding available to its peers.

Devolution now multiplies this. Mayors and combined authorities build local growth and culture plans on national classifications and data in which comedy does not appear, so each new settlement inherits the omission and hard-codes it locally, leaving comedy to negotiate inclusion authority by authority — live comedy venues are already forced to do this for business rates relief. Systemic inclusion of comedy nationally affords the best shot at equal opportunity locally, which helps the sector, communities and audiences thrive.

The commercial consequences of inaction are visible.

Edinburgh Fringe 2026: comedy was 38.4% of the world's largest arts festival — £10.77 million at the box office, 1,077,271 tickets, and around £33 million in net benefit to Scotland. Public funding reinvested into comedy from Scotland: £0. And many talents and businesses are left in debt.
Across 25 years comedy has received under £15 million in direct public investment — an average of £576,000 a year, or just 0.003% of the £16.7 billion DCMS and UKRI distributed annually in 2023/24 (evidence).
In Arts Council England's 2025/26 annual report, out of total expenditure of £946.9 million, £0 is attributed to comedy. At the recent DCMS Committee Arts Council Review oral evidence session, it was said that if you fund comedy, you fund it at the expense of something else.
In a single week in August: Leicester Comedy Festival — Britain's second-biggest, worth up to £10 million a year to its local economy — collapsed owing over £100,000 to more than 170 individuals and small businesses; Underbelly Boulevard Soho announced it will cease trading; and Live at the Apollo was cancelled. Three major British institutions gone.
Summer is always tough for comedy, which is why we asked Government to consider VAT exemptions. This summer was particularly difficult: heatwaves and the World Cup left many live comedy rooms vacant and comedy talent, who are self-employed contractors, were left unpaid. CRAFT is receiving increased reports of financial and mental distress from SMEs and self-employed professionals across the sector, including an increase in homelessness. This is underpinned by complex issues, like over a decade in talent wage stagnation and slow pandemic recovery — only a handful of businesses received 0.2% of the Culture Recovery Fund: £3.8m out of £1.87bn.

Request for meeting

We have been active with Government, local authorities and key institutions for years — comedy needs help. Has comedy ever been in a Budget? We made representations to the Autumn Budget portal, and the sector is concerned it will be omitted again. We wrote to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 23 July requesting parity in existing rates, tax and relief schemes, and to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on 4 September requesting representation on the Creative Industries Council and the Creative Trade Forum. HM Treasury declined to name live comedy venues in the relief granted to pubs and live music venues on 14 August.

We request a meeting at No.10 ahead of the Budget announcement, bringing the recipients of this letter together with a cross-section of the comedy industry. And we renew the unanswered questions put to Government at the ministerial roundtable of 9 March 2026:

Will the Government commission a formal impact assessment of comedy's economic, cultural, social and creative health value, and will it ensure comedy is formally recognised within the structures that shape policy? And if the Government agrees comedy should no longer be omitted, what kind of timeframe can we look at for putting these changes in place?

This letter is undersigned by the comedy industry's people and businesses. Signatures are being gathered across the industry by CRAFT, the national body for comedy.

Did you hear the one about Britain where comedy counted? We look forward to your answer.

Yours sincerely,

Lu JacksonFounder & Chair, CRAFT
Alister MorganFounding Trustee, CRAFT
Jake JeffersonFounding Trustee, CRAFT
Jen SmithFounding Trustee, CRAFT

e: trustees@thecraft.lol · w: thecraft.lol

The annexes

The evidence behind the letter. Open any section.

AWhere comedy is systemically excluded: the recordFunding, representation, classification, tax, health and education, and what exclusion has already cost

Compiled from CRAFT's evidence base: Craic's State of the UK Comedy Industry Survey (2025), CRAFT's reports to Arts Council England and to the Women & Equalities Select Committee (2026), and the records of the Comedy APPG. Sources available on request. One of the biggest issues for comedy is data tracking and accountability. We are volunteers and our information is based on our own research and findings. It is not exhaustive. We view our research as a foundation for further insight and we welcome updates and encourage ongoing discussion and exploration.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 — a measurable sample of public appetite (figures as at June 2026)

The world's largest arts festival: open access, non-curated, held every August for 79 years. Gross box office ~£28m (including 20% VAT) · ~2.8m tickets issued · ~£86m net benefit to the Scottish economy.

Genre share: Comedy 38.4% — £10.77m box office, 1,077,271 tickets, ~£33m net benefit to Scotland · Theatre 28.1% · Music 10.6% · Cabaret and Variety 4.5% · Musicals and Opera 4.2% · Children's Shows 3.5% · Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus 3.2% · Events 1.9% · Exhibitions 1%

Public funding reinvested into comedy from any of the above: £0.

01Arts and culture funding

The four UK arts councils: Comedy is not a recognised artform at Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, the Arts Council of Wales or the Arts Council of Northern Ireland — no dedicated funding pathway, strategy or data. 95.5% of surveyed professionals back recognition; Ireland opened Arts Council funding to comedy for 2026.
ACE National Portfolio: No comedy-dedicated organisation funded from 2010 to the present, including the 2023–26 portfolio. In Arts Council England's 2025/26 annual report, total expenditure came to £946.9 million — almost £1 billion in a single year — with £0 funding attributed to comedy.
Culture Recovery Fund (COVID-19): Comedy received £3.8 million of the £1.87 billion fund (23 organisations) — just 0.2% — and only after industry pressure. Many businesses and professionals have never financially recovered, in particular comedy brands with a venue residency. What happens in a future pandemic or crisis?
National Lottery Community Fund: £4.4 million across 99 recipient organisations since 2004 — sporadic project grants, no individuals, no structured investment.
National Lottery Heritage Fund: £5.5 million across 16 projects since 1999; only two comedy-industry organisations ever funded.
BFI / Creative UK: Only 1.5% of the surveyed sector has ever received comedy-related funding.
DCMS: No dedicated comedy funding stream, of the kind provided for music, theatre, sport and gaming.

02National representation

Creative Industries Council: No comedy seat since the Council's formation in 2011. Music holds five seats; theatre holds three; comedy holds none.
Creative Trade Forum: No comedy member — despite huge engagement with DCMS for years and comedy being small-business, export-ready and commercially proven: precisely what the Forum was created to serve.
British Council: Comedy is not specifically named or recognised within its frameworks.
Charity Commission: Comedy is not specifically named or recognised within its frameworks.

03HM Treasury classification and counting

SOC code (ONS): No Standard Occupational Classification for comedians. Musicians, dancers and actors have their own. Comedy's workforce therefore appears in no labour-market statistics.
SIC code (ONS): No Standard Industrial Classification. Comedy is absorbed into broader categories alongside theatre, opera and dance, so an arena stand-up tour sits in the same code as a ballet company and its receipts cannot be separated. Government builds its creative-industries estimates on these codes, so comedy appears in none of them.
HM Treasury Budget representations portal 2026: Comedy was not specifically named or recognised within its selection framework — six named creative sub-sectors and “Other” was offered.
The consequence: What HM Treasury cannot count, it cannot cost — and what it cannot cost, it does not fund. A sector that cannot be selected cannot be considered, in funding, in trade promotion or in crisis support.

04The tax system — examples, list not exhaustive

Business rates relief, 2026–27 (15%) and 2027–28 (20%): Pubs and live music venues only; comedy excluded from both. A Treasury written answer (3 March 2026) left comedy venues to individual local authorities — a postcode lottery — and HM Treasury has since rejected the sector's request for inclusion (August 2026).
Theatre Tax Relief: Claimable only for a “dramatic production”, so straight stand-up fails the test and temporary festival venues are ineligible — their annual infrastructure spend cannot be claimed by the producers who fund it. £455 million paid across 20,395 productions since 2014; only 1.5% of the comedy sector reports any benefit. Extending eligibility to producers of temporary festival venues is worth an estimated £1 million a year to the Edinburgh Fringe alone.
Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (film & TV): The high-end threshold (c. £1 million per broadcast hour; £420–450k per half-hour) excludes most scripted comedy, and genre rules exclude panel, variety, chat and quiz formats at any budget. Short-form comedy animation can cost as little as £35,000 per 15 minutes.
Creators' Averaging Relief: Writers can smooth spiky income across tax years; performers cannot.
VAT: Live comedy admissions carry the full 20% rate, while the cultural exemption lets a charity theatre keep all £30 of a ticket its comedy-club neighbour keeps £25 of.
Creative-sector tax reliefs: Reliefs exist for film, high-end TV, children's TV, animation, video games, theatre, orchestras, and museum and gallery exhibitions. Comedy is named in none, and its fastest-growing formats — podcasts and audio — sit outside every relief. This also applies to all creative industries.
Creative Health tax relief: Cultural production and registered arts therapists are supported through the tax system; the largely solo workforce delivering creative health within social prescribing activity (online or in person) is not. This also applies to all creative industries.
Grassroots levy: The voluntary £1 arena-ticket levy reinvests in grassroots music; there is no comedy equivalent, and none of comedy's arena and streaming wealth is recycled into its grassroots circuit.

05Health, education, research and innovation

NHS creative health & social prescribing: Comedy is not integrated or named — despite mental ill health costing England £300 billion a year, more than the entire NHS budget and the cost of a pandemic annually. Social prescribing returns up to £8.56 per £1 invested. Comedy creative health belongs inside NHS social prescribing schemes.
Department for Education: No equivalent of Music Education Hubs and nothing in schools. Comedy is absent from arts and creative education provision, and there is no funded route into comedy teaching.
UKRI (including AHRC and Innovate UK): No “comedy” category on funding portals; only two comedy-industry organisations awarded in 60,000+ grants since 2004 — £683,000 in total.

06Government documents and consultations in which comedy is not mentioned once

Creative Industries Sector Vision (2023): The 60-page, ten-year UK plan for the creative industries. Comedy not mentioned once.
Creative Industries Sector Plan (2025): The current sector plan. Comedy not mentioned once.
The Creative Technology Report (2025): Creative technology strategy. Comedy not mentioned once.
The Coronation Challenge CreaTech Report (2025): Emerging-technology report. Comedy not mentioned once.
Copyright and AI Consultation (2024): Despite AI's direct impact on comedy's work, rights and likenesses. Comedy not mentioned once.
Dormant Assets Scheme Consultation (2025): Funding-allocation consultation. Comedy not mentioned once.
Better Futures Fund (2025): Fund framework. Comedy not mentioned once.
Arts Council England Review (2025): Comedy was not specifically named or recognised within the selection frameworks — “Non-discipline / Other” was the choice offered. CRAFT made a direct representation to Baroness Hodge and DCMS.

07What exclusion has already cost

People: 63% of the comedy workforce earns under £30,000. AI is stripping out the second incomes — voiceover, scriptwriting, research — that kept careers afloat, and talent is now leaving to work abroad.
Festivals: Leicester Comedy Festival — Britain's second-biggest, worth up to £10 million a year to its local economy — collapsed owing over £100,000 to more than 170 individuals and small businesses.
Venues: Underbelly Boulevard Soho announced it will cease trading. Fewer than 30 dedicated comedy venues remain in the UK, and comedy brands with venue residencies, that keep the circuit alive, are struggling.
Broadcast: Live at the Apollo was cancelled, one of the few remaining mainstream showcases for new stand-up talent.
The public: Comedy is the most democratic artform in the country: no qualification, no audition panel, no grant, no permission. What is lost is the entry route, and with it a diverse range of voices.
The counter-example: None of this is inevitable. Where comedy has been explicitly named — by Amazon, by the Australian High Commission, by Campaign for the Arts, by the Arts Council of Ireland — inclusion has worked immediately and cost the naming body nothing. Annex D sets those out.

BThe tax and funding measures we are asking forTwo representations made to this Budget

Two representations have been made to this Budget: 01 tax and fairness, and 02 a new workforce in comedy education, creative health and innovation.

01Tax and fairness

Classification: Create a Standard Occupational Classification and a Standard Industrial Classification code for comedy, so it can be counted. What HMT cannot count, it cannot cost — and what it cannot cost, it does not fund.
Recognition: Comedy recognised as a standalone artform by all four UK Arts Councils — named wherever music and theatre are named, rather than treated as a sub-classification of theatre.
Representation: A comedy representative on the Creative Industries Council and the Creative Trade Forum. A candidate has been vetted for the CIC since the March 2026 ministerial roundtable and not yet appointed.
Business rates relief: Live comedy venues made eligible for the 15% relief in 2026–27 and the 20% relief in 2027–28, at parity with pubs and live music venues, with central Treasury guidance instead of a council-by-council postcode lottery. Extend eligibility to comedy businesses running residencies and festivals in commercial spaces without a lease.
VAT on live admissions: A zero or reduced cultural rate.
VAT on split fees: A zero or reduced rate on net ticket splits paid to non-VAT-registered talent, mirroring HMRC's Flat Rate Scheme for pubs.
Theatre Tax Relief: Expand to unscripted, broadcast and festival formats, recognising temporary festivals such as the Fringe as investors alongside producers — or create a dedicated Live Comedy Tax Relief modelled on Theatre and Orchestra Tax Relief. The festival element alone is worth an estimated £1 million a year to the Edinburgh Fringe. In the meantime, issue HMRC guidance for character and narrative shows that already qualify but go unclaimed: only 1.5% of the sector reports any benefit today.
Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit: Reform the threshold so scripted comedy at every budget level is treated equivalently to high-end television and film, and remove the genre rules that exclude panel and entertainment formats at any budget. The current £420,000–£450,000 per half-hour threshold excludes mid-budget sitcoms, sketch shows and short-form animation — exactly where new writers, performers and formats are developed. Add a long-tail incentive rewarding sustained, multi-series investment.
Creators' Averaging Relief: Extend to performers across all creative industries. Writers can already smooth spiky income across tax years; the performers delivering the same work cannot.
Audio and Content Tax Relief: A format-neutral relief with comedy explicitly named. Reliefs exist for film, high-end television, children's television, animation, video games, theatre, orchestras and exhibitions; podcasts and audio — comedy's fastest-growing formats — sit outside every one of them.
A comedy levy: A levy applied consistently at arena and stadium level, with the comedy share returned to the grassroots comedy circuit. Multifaceted rather than limited to live ticketing. Grassroots music already has this; comedy does not. No Exchequer cost. Consider a statutory levy. CRAFT can support this programme.

02A new workforce: comedy education, innovation and creative health

Income support for individuals: 63% of the comedy workforce earns under £30,000. Comedy professionals are not short of skills — they are short of a second income that does not require leaving comedy altogether. A basic living wage, or funded upskilling into comedy education and creative health roles, keeps talent inside the sector rather than driving it out.
Comedy education (DfE): Comedy included in arts and creative education by the Department for Education, with an equivalent of Music Education Hubs and funded routes into comedy teaching. There is nothing in schools today. Sector skills and development funding from DCMS, of the kind music, theatre and sport receive.
Comedy creative health (DHSC / NHS England): Comedy named in social prescribing guidance and creative health frameworks by the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. Mental ill health costs England around £300 billion a year and social prescribing returns up to £8.56 for every £1 invested.
Creative Health Tax Relief: A relief with comedy explicitly named, covering the largely solo workforce delivering creative health within social prescribing, online or in person. Cultural production and registered arts therapists are already supported; this workforce is not.
Innovation (UKRI, AHRC, Innovate UK): Comedy added as a standard category on UKRI funding portals, and not as a “genre” of arts, with access to the R&D support its creative peers already receive.
Evidence and audit: A DCMS-commissioned impact assessment of the comedy ecosystem, and a published ten-year record of what every department and arm's-length body has awarded to comedy, who applied, and who sits on their panels — with comparison to the other recognised artforms over the same period.

CWhat has been done, 2022–2026Four years of asking, delivered entirely by volunteers

We've been asking Government, funders and institutions for support since 2022, through more than a thousand recorded engagements. Every meeting, roundtable, report, survey, inquiry submission and parliamentary briefing below has been delivered by volunteers. Nobody at CRAFT is paid, and CRAFT provides the Secretariat of the Comedy APPG on a voluntary basis — because nobody has ever been funded to do it.

2022 onwards: Sustained engagement with Government, UKRI, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Innovate UK, Arts Council England, councils, MPs, peers and Secretaries of State. Over 1,000 recorded engagements.
Nov 2023: First UKRI / AHRC / Innovate UK meeting on comedy's position within the creative industries, funding and institutional support.
Feb 2024: Comedy, artificial intelligence and intellectual property concerns raised with AHRC and Innovate UK — including comedy's absence from the Creative Industries Council, ACE frameworks, DCMS reports and UKRI funding.
Jan 2025: Comedy and creative health raised in the House of Commons by Dr Simon Opher MP.
Mar 2025: Creative health roundtable in Parliament with Dr Simon Opher MP and Lu Jackson, in her remit as founder of Craic. A ministerial roundtable for comedy formally requested of the then Creative Industries Minister, Sir Chris Bryant.
Jun 2025: Major reports submitted to Arts Council England: the case for comedy as an artform, a working definition of comedy, and a state-of-the-industry funding and support overview. Taken into DCMS Committee correspondence.
Aug 2025: First meeting with the Executive Chair of AHRC on support for comedy as an artform.
Oct 2025: First London business and growth roundtable for comedy, with Rachel Blake MP, Dr Simon Opher MP, Deputy Mayor of London Howard Dawber, and Lu Jackson, in her remit as founder of Craic. Guests included the comedy sector, DCMS, the Greater London Authority, Westminster City Council, arts bodies and business leaders. Government asks for the comedy industry's Top 10 priority list.
Jan 2026: Second DCMS ministerial meeting. The Minister agrees to the industry-wide roundtable.
Feb 2026: UKRI asked, via Samantha Niblett MP at the DSIT Committee, to add comedy as a standard category on its funding portals. Misogyny in Comedy Inquiry campaign agreed by Kim Leadbeater MP.
5 Mar 2026: CRAFT launches as the first national body covering the entire comedy industry.
9 Mar 2026: The first ever ministerial roundtable on comedy. Formal asks made to Government on recognition and on a full impact assessment. ACE agrees to support a comedy funding session.
Spring 2026: Joint letter to the Chancellor from CRAFT patrons Samantha Niblett MP, Dr Simon Opher MP and Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, requesting inclusion of live comedy venues in the 15% business rates relief.
Apr 2026: The Women and Equalities Committee opens its Misogyny in Comedy inquiry — the first parliamentary inquiry into the comedy industry. CRAFT's survey gathers 268 industry voices; oral evidence given.
Jul 2026: The Comedy APPG is established at private roundtable — comedy's first standing place in Parliament, with CRAFT as Secretariat. Letter to the Prime Minister requesting rates and relief parity (23 July).
Aug 2026: In one week: Leicester Comedy Festival collapses, Underbelly Boulevard Soho announces closure, and Live at the Apollo is cancelled.
7 Sep 2026: First public Comedy APPG roundtable: tax reform and the comedy levy.
12 Oct 2026: Joint roundtable of the Creative Health APPG and the Comedy APPG.
28 Oct 2026: The Autumn Budget.

DWhen it is done properly, it looks like thisWhere naming comedy has already worked, at no cost

Inclusion is not difficult, expensive or untested. Where comedy has been explicitly named, it has worked immediately and at no cost to the naming body. We want to acknowledge those who have already done it, and to ask Government, local authorities, key institutions, organisations and businesses to do the same.

Australia House Creatives · Australian High Commission, July 2026: Launched in London with comedy on the bill from the very start, alongside opera, music, spoken word, dance and visual art. No lobbying. No arguing comedy's case. No asking to be let in. Comedy was simply included, as a matter of course.
Amazon Regional Creatives Fund, 2026: Comedy named explicitly within the Fund's scope following CRAFT's work with our political patrons and with Amazon. A single line of text opened a national funding route to a sector that had been outside every comparable scheme.
Campaign for the Arts: Comedy included within its reporting and advocacy on the state of arts funding, rather than absorbed into theatre — demonstrating that comedy can be counted and reported on by those who choose to do so, even while the official classifications do not allow for it.
Arts Council of Ireland, 2026: Opened Arts Council funding to comedy, showing that an arts council can recognise comedy without disadvantaging any other artform.
The principle: Naming comedy costs nothing. Each of the above was achieved by an organisation choosing to include comedy rather than waiting for a classification to permit it. Government can do the same at this Budget, and go further by fixing the classification itself.

CRAFT, the Comedy Representation & Artform Trust, is the dedicated national body for the entire comedy industry ecosystem, spanning live, broadcast, recorded, digital, visual/illustrative, and the surrounding businesses — and the public they serve. CRAFT is Secretariat of the Comedy APPG and a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in formation which exists to give comedy the infrastructure, policy representation, and professional support long afforded to other industries, including music, theatre and sport.

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An open letter from the UK comedy industry · Budget 2026

Dear Prime Minister Andy Burnham,

Comedy is everywhere in British culture and nowhere in British policy. Ahead of the Autumn Budget, we ask you to change that: Back British Comedy. The people who make and love comedy have undersigned this letter.

— signed

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