Comedians join students on air for Dave's Leicester Comedy Festival

Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival has not only taken over the city, it has taken over the airwaves at Demon FM, writes Jack Brooke-Battersby.

Students from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)’s Music Technology and Media Production courses have been interviewing comedians every day as part of their radio shows.



They had the chance to join the festival as part of the advanced radio production module in their final year. Each has been split into groups with at least one comedian joining them to co-host 10 radio shows throughout the event.

As well as entertaining guests, students will be conducting interviews during the festival at the events, which are then edited and used during their programmes.

Final year Media Production student, Briallen Williams, has been co-ordinating the shows.

She said: “My main role is to make sure that people’s guests don’t clash. Each show has three students and I’m sorting out the contacts for the guests for each group’s show.

“It’s has been really stressful to sort out but it’s also been a lot of fun, the experience is all really useful and this puts me in really good stead for getting into industry roles, it’s really good self-publicity and the opportunities are there for everyone to be able to succeed on this course.”

The first students to be joined by a co-host on their show were Natalie Whyte, Mark Davis and James Newton, who hosted comedian Jody Kamali.

Natalie said: “I didn't realise how much I would love radio until I did this module."

For those students that get to play such a key role in the festival, it is a superb opportunity to gain valuable industry experience.

Amy Ashfield, a final year Media Production student, said: “We want to know exactly what it’s like preparing for such a big show and the experience will be really useful for real-life radio shows because it’s all new to a lot of us but it’s the career many of us want to pursue.

“There is a lot of hands-on learning, it’s not just theory based as you really get thrown into the industry to get the experience and I’d definitely recommend it.”