STUDIO: This is LoCo's first London Comedy film festival.  Congratulations!  How does it feel?

Denise Hicks: It's really exciting and terrifying at the same time.  It's our first London comedy film festival, but it's not our first event.  We actually started LoCo in September 2010, and our first event was Airplane last December.  It was the thirtieth anniversary of Airplane and, purely by coincidence, a memorial to Leslie Nielsen because the event was a week after he died.  It turned into a bit of a tribute, but ever since then we've been doing events throughout London.  January is our first official festival.

STUDIO: So what will the festival have in store for Londoners?

DH: The idea was born out of the insight that comedy is an incredibly popular genre, particularly in the UK.  We have this incredible heritage in comedy film, going all the way back to Chaplin and Keaton, and of course Monty Python.  Actually looking at the figures, we sell more cinema tickets for comedy films than other genre in the UK.  But for some reason, comedy just seems to be under appreciated, critically.

A large part of the festival is purely about sitting down and enjoying comedy films with a group of people, because that's where comedy films really thrive.  Also, there's a really important strand to LoCo – which we call LoCollege – which is all about the development of up and coming comedy filmmakers.  So, we've got an incredible line up.  Comedy is really, really hard and I don't think people appreciate how hard it is.

STUDIO: I agree. Comedy is not an easy genre!

DH: No it's not.  People think that comedy is easy.  They think it's often about working off jokes they have with their mates – that kind of thing – but to really tune that into something that works is a whole other skill.

Read the rest of Funny Women, in our January 2012 issue.  Out now!