Jongleurs is a chain of comedy clubs in the United Kingdom. Maria Kempinska MBE established and opened the first Jongleurs club in 1983 in Battersea, London. In 1985 Maria then met her business partner John Davy, and together they built the Jongleurs brand. The company evolved into a corporate brand, specialising in entertaining larger parties. By 2000, there were eight Jongleurs venues across the UK. Regent Inns plc, the owners of Walkabout, bought the clubs. Maria Kempinska and John Davy retained certain rights to the brand name as well as creative control over booking acts. [1]
In October 2009, Regent Inns went into prepacked administration allowing for a management buy out which resulted in the formation of Intertain UK. As a result of this adminatration Jongleurs venues in Southampton, Nottingham, Bristol, Oxford and Bow (London)[1] all closed down.
As a result of the management buy out, Intertain UK decided to end its relationship with Jongleurs allowing the formation of a new brand of comedy venues, highlight, and Maria Kempinska and John Davy set about building a new chain of Jongleurs Clubs. Hammersmith opened a month after the collapse and Bournemouth, Notting Hill and Clacton followed shortly after. Momo Leisure have secured a franchise and opened a Comedy Club in Nottingham. [2] They recently secure a £2m investment planned for new Jongleurs clubs throughout the country. The most recent being Jongleurs Blackpool which will open at The Winter Gardens, Blackpool on October 15th 2010. In September 2010 they opened 4 venues with Novus Leisure at Sway Covent Garden and the Tiger Tiger Brand. Currently Luminar have licensed the brand to 12 Oceana venues around the country.
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Jongleurs clubs are now in Nottingham, Covent Garden, Portsmouth, Bristol, Blackpool, Glasgow, Croydon, Norwich, Cardiff and Newcastle Upon Tyne opening between May and September are The Hippodrome-Kingston, Oceana's in Watford, Swansea, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Southampton and Basildon.
There have been several television programmes which have featured Jongleurs comedy clubs, including "Cabaret at the Jongleurs" on the BBC and "Live at Jongleurs" on ITV. "Live At Jongleurs" currently features on the Paramount Comedy Channel featuring performances filmed at the Camden venue in the mid 90's. Comedians to have featured on Jongleurs TV shows include: Jo Brand, Rory Bremner, Julian Clary, Phil Cool, Steve Coogan, Jack Dee, Michael Mcintyre, Peter Kay, Ruby Wax, and Paul Chowdhury.