onionbagblog
Only When I Laugh
A rare Saturday West End (ish) night out, as the fragrant mrs onionbagblogger and I went along to support occasional work colleague @comedybeard, doing his, um, comedy thing with his big beard.
Holborn? You're 'avin a laugh, aren't you?
The restaurant venue wasn't quite suited to comedy. I was half expecting chicken in a basket to make an appearance during the interval. But the company was enjoyable, even if the £3.50 for a bottle of Becks wasn't. Thankfully I was wearing my corset, for I feared my sides would burst, if not from all the laughter, then from a stomach pumped full of overpriced crappy lager.
My experience tells me that you can judge the success of a comedy club by the body language of the clientele at the start of the evening. The sight of a bloke standing at the front of the stage listening to his iPod didn't bode well for the laughs per minute comedy count.
Curtain time, and we were introduced to our compare for the evening - a man so camp he had used tent pegs to position his hair in place. It may seem a mighty long way from London town comedy cool to Duncan Norvelle end of the pier campness, but I swear our happy camper said 'chase me!' within the first minute.
Fisting Norman Lamont was funny back in the day; the 2009 re-write involving inserting unfeasibly large objects inside the orifice of Joe Cole didn't quite cut it for me. Or Joe Cole, I imagine.
On to the acts for the evening. To book one heavily pregnant comedian guaranteed some original material. To book two heavily pregnant comedians, and then have them following each other, made any unfertilised lady in the audience appear like the odd one out. Has there been a mass orgy of late that I didn't get an invite to?
I took a toilet break, and took a pregnant pause when I noticed a poster above the urinals advertising 'Christmas party bookings for 2009!'
Taking the p*** / 'avin a laugh, etc.
Yer man @comedybeard came on later in the evening. I don't think the world (or even Holborn) was ready for the revelation that he gave birth to Richard Madley (yet another preggers punch-line.) His observations on the life of a clotheshorse, not to mention trying to mend Broken Britain at least had the attention of the iPod yoof.
Comedy was once the new rock 'n roll, doncta know. Fifteen years ago and mrs obb and I were out on the comedy circuit more than we were gigging. But just like music, somehow it all went corporate. Marketing turns everything into s***.
We returned back down to the Beautiful South for an early night, £20 each lighter. Maybe comedy has a social role to fill in these times of the credit being crunched? A West End venue with a compare having more double entendres than Finabarr Saunders let loose in a sausage factory failed to blow my big comedy horn.
reply via twitter
| Sunday 29 March, 2009 |
A rare Saturday West End (ish) night out, as the fragrant mrs onionbagblogger and I went along to support occasional work colleague @comedybeard, doing his, um, comedy thing with his big beard.
Holborn? You're 'avin a laugh, aren't you?
The restaurant venue wasn't quite suited to comedy. I was half expecting chicken in a basket to make an appearance during the interval. But the company was enjoyable, even if the £3.50 for a bottle of Becks wasn't. Thankfully I was wearing my corset, for I feared my sides would burst, if not from all the laughter, then from a stomach pumped full of overpriced crappy lager.
My experience tells me that you can judge the success of a comedy club by the body language of the clientele at the start of the evening. The sight of a bloke standing at the front of the stage listening to his iPod didn't bode well for the laughs per minute comedy count.
Curtain time, and we were introduced to our compare for the evening - a man so camp he had used tent pegs to position his hair in place. It may seem a mighty long way from London town comedy cool to Duncan Norvelle end of the pier campness, but I swear our happy camper said 'chase me!' within the first minute.
Fisting Norman Lamont was funny back in the day; the 2009 re-write involving inserting unfeasibly large objects inside the orifice of Joe Cole didn't quite cut it for me. Or Joe Cole, I imagine.
On to the acts for the evening. To book one heavily pregnant comedian guaranteed some original material. To book two heavily pregnant comedians, and then have them following each other, made any unfertilised lady in the audience appear like the odd one out. Has there been a mass orgy of late that I didn't get an invite to?
I took a toilet break, and took a pregnant pause when I noticed a poster above the urinals advertising 'Christmas party bookings for 2009!'
Taking the p*** / 'avin a laugh, etc.
Yer man @comedybeard came on later in the evening. I don't think the world (or even Holborn) was ready for the revelation that he gave birth to Richard Madley (yet another preggers punch-line.) His observations on the life of a clotheshorse, not to mention trying to mend Broken Britain at least had the attention of the iPod yoof.
Comedy was once the new rock 'n roll, doncta know. Fifteen years ago and mrs obb and I were out on the comedy circuit more than we were gigging. But just like music, somehow it all went corporate. Marketing turns everything into s***.
We returned back down to the Beautiful South for an early night, £20 each lighter. Maybe comedy has a social role to fill in these times of the credit being crunched? A West End venue with a compare having more double entendres than Finabarr Saunders let loose in a sausage factory failed to blow my big comedy horn.
reply via twitter
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