About Us
Fem de la Femme is a Community Interest Company that runs a sell-out women’s line up event of comedy and spoken word. We run our regular monthly event at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool which showcases some of the best female comic’s and spoken word artists in the North and beyond. Being a woman in comedy, in particular, has its challenges, it’s still a traditionally male dominated profession especially at the grass roots level and Fem de la Femme hopes to readdress the balance a little by giving a platform to the many incredibly talented women out there!
Our regular sell out night is on the 4th Thursday of the month. We bring you veteran professionals, up and coming performers, who are honing their craft and women who are brand new to the comedy or spoken word circuit. It’s a raucous, wonderful and welcoming environment and every line up offers as much diversity as possible. We work hard to ensure opportunities to women from BAME and LGBTQI + community’s and the Everyman venue has full disabled access.
Fem de la Femme is very keen to support charities and organisations that support women’s health, right’s and wellbeing. As such, we nominate different women’s charities whom we help raise awareness for and fundraise for through our regular raffle. We have had some amazing support from local businesses donating goods and services. If you feel you may be able to help with donations, please do get in touch. So far we have raised £509 for RASA Merseyside who offer counselling to victims of sexual assault we have also raised £507 and collected over £200 worth of period products so far for The Period Project Merseyside. If you are a charity or organisation that works with woman and you think we may be able to help do get in touch.
About the Founder
Fem de la Femme was founded by Claire Berry in 2022.
I always wanted to be a long distance lorry driver, my dreams were dashed by the cost of driving lessons so instead I’ve worked as a care worker, trained as a teacher, tutored children in care, been a Community and Events Fundraiser and sold burgers. But my real passion and love has always been in the arts, I started as a performance poet in the late 90’s whilst studying a HNC in performing arts. I performed at many venues in Bristol and London including the Ashton Court Festival, Jesters comedy club and the The Arnolfini. My work has been published in two local anthologies and I also feature on a CD (Monkeys with Car Keys) alongside other local spoken word artists and in a HTV documentary ‘Hidden Voices’ about performance poets in Bristol. I then went on to complete a degree In Creative Writing In 2001 at Bath Spa University. During this time I was also running and facilitating theatre and creative workshops for young people which I did for 10 years.
I wrote a series of monologues for an adult audience often exploring themes such as addiction, abuse and social isolation using large doses of dark humour. Among others my plays were performed at The Rhondo Theatre – Bath, The Alma Tavern Bristol, The Lowry Studio Salford, The Kings Arms, Salford, 24/7 Theatre Festival Manchester and Buxton Theatre Festival.
Then became a single mum, had a big fat breakdown and reluctantly relocated to Liverpool 5 years ago.
Why Fem de la Femme?
I started my comedy journey in the summer of 2019 as part of my mental health recovery, through a course at the Life Rooms which also happened to fulfil a latent 20 year old desire to try stand up. It was such an exhilarating and bizarrely healing experience. However it was not long before I discovered a disparity on many of the grass roots comedy events with a high proportion of all male line ups. I heard the frustrations of many local female comics on the circuit struggling to get seen or progress in the comedy world. As a proud and loud feminist I decided to trial an all women line-up night… I was thoroughly blown away by the response so soon after I approached the Everyman Theatre who were keen to support and nurture the event. The night has conistanatly sold out and we have grown a lovely group of Femlets followers who loyally turn up for the managed mayhem every month.
After the success of Fem de la Femme, we have now grown into a fully-fledged Comunity Interest Company and we aim to deliver more events and projects that support and encourage home grown talent and give women comedians and spoken word artists the opportunities they deserve.
Giving women better representation
Fem de la Femme is about giving women better representation for both performers and audiences. It offers a platform for woman from all levels of the industry in a safe and supportive environment to express themselves and develop their comedic voice. It also offers women audience members an opportunity to listen and to enjoy comedy from a female, relatable perspective. Ticket prices are deliberately low in order to make the events as accessible as possible to the Local community.
A space for socialising and fun
Fem de la femme offers a space for socialising, fun and inspiration during challenging times and anyone is welcome as an audience member.
Developing our reach
We are currently working towards developing our reach in the North by hosting more events, offering workshops, mentorship schemes and creating a podcast…look out for updates on this website!
We are also available for hire for Corporate Parties, Weddings, Hen Nights and other events.