Off the Shelf: Art History's Funniest Bits

Verity Babbs is at the Millennium Gallery on Sunday 18 October, from 3pm to 4pm, for a talk on art history's funniest bits. It's part of Off the Shelf: Festival of Words, the University of Sheffield's festival of ideas, and it's exactly what the title suggests: a look at the more ridiculous side of art history.

Babbs is an art historian and a comedian, and she'll be drawing on stories from her book, The History of Art in One Sentence. The book itself covers 500 years of artists behaving badly, jaw-dropping artworks and the manifestos that went with them, so the talk should pull from that same vein. If you've ever wondered about the chaos behind the canvas, this is where it comes out.

She's got the credentials to back it up, too. She holds a History of Art degree from the University of Oxford and was named one of BBC HistoryExtra's '30 Under 30' in 2024. She also regularly performs her Art Laughs events at the National Gallery, so this is well within her wheelhouse. It's less of a formal lecture and more of a guided tour through the oddities of the art world, told by someone who knows her stuff and doesn't take it too seriously.

Tickets are £12, or £10 if you're eligible for the concession. It runs from 3pm to 4pm on Sunday 18 October at the Millennium Gallery.