Our Archives and Collections: Comedy, Film and Theatre

Our collections relating to comedy, film and theatre range from the archives of key contempary  comedians, including Alexei Sayle and Mark Thomas, the work of the ‘king of poster artists’ John Hassall, and the rich, online collection of the East Anglian Film Archive.

Together they present a historical and contemporary reflection of our society and cultural life. The list below gives a snapshot of some of our collections.

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Archive	Description
Regional Film-Making	The East Anglian Film Archive, the first regional film archive in England, was established in 1976. The collection comprises about 12,000 hours of film and up to 30,000 hours of videotape, and includes footage relating to the East of England, and collections of  national and international scope.
Stand-up Comedy	The British Stand-Up Comedy Archive was established at Kent in 2013 to celebrate, preserve, and provide access to the archives and records of British stand-up comedy and comedians. It includes the archive of comedians as diverse as Linda Smith, Alexei Sayle, Richard Herring and Attila the Stockbroker.
Theatre and Pantomime	The Eastern Arc universities hold an extensive collection of artefacts and papers relating to theatre and pantomime. They include the archives of stage and screen actors, including Edward Woodward and Arthur Williams, playbills, programmes and performance material. It also includes the Drummond Collection at Kent of books, posters, prints, and ephemera relating to the history of British pantomime, the Tinkler and Williams, Theatre Quarterly and Fisher Theatre collections at UEA, and the archive of the man who came to be known as the ‘king of poster artists,’ John Hassall, at Essex.