Counterpoints Arts runs No Direction Home (NDH) as part of our PopChange work: it’s a project for new comics from refugee and migrant backgrounds, featuring workshops, expert tuition and gigs around the country.
Created in partnership with Camden People’s Theatre and comedian Tom Parry, we have run several series of workshops and more than 25 gigs, featuring guest headliners such as Nish Kumar, Romesh Ranganatham, Suzi Ruffell, Joel Dommett and Lou Sanders.
Nish Kumar says: “The No Direction Home comedians are a very exciting, interesting and creative bunch of people to be around. And they are very funny, the material is really good.”
The aim of the project is to provide training, opportunities and career development and to help shift the narrative about who and what can be funny. As Yasmeen Ghrawi, one of the No Direction Home comedians, says, it is “a space for each one of us to reclaim ourselves and reclaim our voices. A space where we can really meet our power again.”
When surveyed, every one of the participants who responded said the project had benefited their well-being and mental health and all of them would recommend it to others.
As part of Coventry City of Culture 2021, a new No Direction Home group was established in Coventry with a series of workshops and gigs led by comedian Stella Graham.
Building on the success of No Direction Home, we launched a podcast But Is It Funny which aims to extend and diversify the critical conversation around comedy.
Read Yasmeen Audisho Ghrawi on what being part of No Direction Home means to her
New for 2023: No Direction Home at Soho Theatre
Read an article about No Direction Home in The Guardian
Read about how No Direction Home went to Greece in 2022
Watch Tom Parry chatting with Nish Kumar about No Direction Home on Facebook Live
