How it started
Early years
Maria Kempinska established and opened the first Jongleurs club in 1983 in Battersea, London. In 1985 Kempinska met her business partner John Davy and they went on to create a number of comedy clubs around the UK in the following years.
By 2000, there were eight Jongleurs venues across the UK. Regent Inns plc, the owners of Walkabout, bought the clubs. Kempinska and Davy retained certain rights to the brand name, as well as creative control over booking acts.
With Regent Inns in financial trouble, the Cardiff venue was closed in January 2009 and in October that year, 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 administration, Jongleurs venues in Southampton, Nottingham, Bristol, Oxford and Bow (London) all closed. The sites in Oxford and Nottingham were later reopened by rival chain The Glee Club. As a result of the management buy out, Intertain UK decided to end its relationship with Jongleurs and all the remaining clubs were rebranded as Highlight in January 2010.
From Wikipedia’s article on Jongleurs, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2