Emily Whitehouse sits down with stand-up comedian Jonathan Mayor to find out more about Macclesfield’s growing comedy scene. Who said small towns had to be boring?Image credit:

(c) Andy Hollingworth Archive

A comedy group and a host walk into a Sunday school…Not the start of a joke, but essentially a summary of how one of Macclesfield’s oldest landmarks came to be the town’s biggest comedy venue. The Cinemac first opened in 2003, based in the Heritage Centre on Roe Street, previously a Sunday school which had been established in 1814. The building’s high ceilings, fold out chairs and stone staircases offer a subtle nod to its background, though its rich history also makes for exceptional comedy material.

“The comedy scene in Macclesfield is evolving,” says Jonathan Mayor, the host of Macclesfield’s Comedy Club nights. “And the Cinemac is one of our favourite places to perform. Our comedy group, which is represented by Nodding Dog Comedy, started performing in Macclesfield in 2021 when we played at the rugby club, but we moved to RedWillow Brewery a year later and started performing at the Cinemac in 2022.”

“Currently, we put on two stand- up shows at the RedWillow each month and one at the cinema, if it can even be classed as that. Only in the North would you find a building that has a museum of its history on the ground floor and a cinema that doubles up as a live entertainment venue on the top. Although people seem to love it – most of our shows here sell out, which isn’t an easy target to achieve given the venue seats 280 people,” Jonathan continues.

Putting it into context, hundreds of well-known and aspiring comics have appeared on the line-up. The shows have established themselves as a stop-off on the regional circuit for emerging stand-up comedians. The latest performance at the Cinemac, which premiered on 4^th October, saw future comedy legends Glenn Moore and Anja Atkinson play to a sold-out crowd. What’s more, a show in the summer included Tom Wrigglesworth, a multi-award-winning act who is best known for his Radio 4 shows.

The line-up for the next performance maintains this standard. On Friday 6^th December the event will feature Andrew Bird, who has just appeared on The Russell Howard Hour and Finn Taylor, who’s making his debut in Macclesfield following the success of his web series Finn Vs The Internet. I guarantee the jokes will be better than those in your Christmas cracker.

Although the performers change with each show, one thing that remains the same is the resident compère, Jonathan Mayor. He claims that since he started comedy in 1993, the gigs in Macclesfield are some of his favourite.

“I didn’t even mean to create a career in comedy, I just fell into it,” Jonathan laughs as I ask him about where it all began. “When I was younger, I wanted to become an opera singer, but I didn’t get into the Royal Northern College of Music. After that I ended up joining a gay rugby team in Manchester and one of the guys had a pub where he’d host a quiz night on a weekend. The questions were incredibly complicated – they were all concerning science and maths – and eventually the guy I was friends with asked if I would host it to make it more accessible for other members of the public.”

“There was one night where a woman, who had been horrible to me throughout the entire quiz, shouted at me for apparently delivering the wrong answer, so I said to her ‘if you keep being mean I’ll take five points off your team’ which made the rest of the pub howl. After this, future quizzes turned into me doing a lot of crowd work – I would deduct points off people if I didn’t like what they were wearing, or I’d ask questions about what TV or films people liked and if I hated them, I’d issue penalties.” Jonathan adds.

“It was here that I learned I loved to make people laugh and shortly after hosting a few quizzes, I booked my first ‘proper’ comedy gig at a place in Manchester called the Buzz Club. Though, as much as I enjoy performing my own shows, I prefer being the host because they get more time on stage and can engage in a lot more crowd work.”

Jonathan goes on to explain that, although he landed a few shows, breaking into the industry was still hard for him. He says: “I moved to London for a month in the 90s and I hated it, I found the people weren’t very welcoming and I had a ‘normal’ job that didn’t pay very well so it was hard to get my comedy career off the ground. However, after I came back to Manchester and started playing more regularly in Northern cities, I was able to drop down to part-time hours in my office job and explore the comedy scene a bit more.”

“The reception in the North and the places you get to perform also make it worth exploring,” Jonathan continues. “For example Macclesfield’s Cinemac will always be one of my favourite places to host shows. The venue is really freaky, legend claims it’s haunted and not so long-ago people held a séance there and allegedly summoned the spirits of the old children that attended the Sunday school. I’m not sure how much I believe this, but at the start of my gigs I try and summon them, although I haven’t had any luck yet.”

As well as complimenting Macclesfield’s venues, Jonathan also explains that the crowds they gather never disappoint. He says: “One of the best parts about booking a reoccurring gig in a small town is you get to know faces. The community in Macclesfield are amazing and we often get the same regulars. There is this one wonderful woman who always comes to our Cinemac nights called Linda. She’s registered deaf although you wouldn’t think it – she has the most infectious laugh; it pretty much fills the entire building.”

However, Jonathan goes on to note that sustaining a decent sized crowd hasn’t always been easy. “The COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living has had devastating effects on the comedy scene. Not only do people not have as much money to spend on nights out, but some comedians – especially new ones – don’t have the funds to travel miles to venues,” Jonathan remarks. “This is why gigs in smaller towns are so important, they give young aspiring comics the chance to perform on stage and they provide residents with entertainment on their doorstep.”

Jonathan adds: “During my career I’ve had the pleasure of performing alongside Sarah Millican and MC-ing a few of her new material gigs. I’m also just about to go on tour with Janet Taylor who has written a new play called Varnish. These have all been massive highlights, but I’m more than happy just performing in smaller venues because, at the end of the day, I just want to keep making people laugh.”