Good for laughs

When I first moved to London, Debbie and I would make a weekly visit to a comedy night held at The Mason’s Arms, just out the back of Vogue House where Debbie was working at the time.

            The night was arranged and hosted by the GQ Photo editor, who was a friend of Debbie’s and who always gave us the heads up when there was something particularly good to see. Sadly, they stopped the comedy night to refurbish the pub, and the newly decorated rooms weren't considered to be the right venue for comedy, so the nights relocated to another part of London, and our regular attendance ended as a result. 

            This meant that for the first year of my London years, comedy nights and Tuesday evenings were squiffily spent in the small upstairs function room of a grimy pub, making friends with comedian and laughing at a lot of recycled jokes as some of the better comedians warmed up and tried out new jokes in preparation for their bigger gigs in the coming months.

            Since those fabulous comedy days, I haven’t been to much comedy at all – I’ve seen the odd Comedy Club offering, and managed to catch a few professional, TV comedies when they have been live in bigger London studio tours, but it’s been a while since I spent an evening in a grimy pub that seats less than 30 audience members.

            That is, until last night! When I heard that an International Comedy Festival was going to be making it’s way over to Singapore, I jumped at the chance to buy tickets, and having scoped out most of the options, I ended up buying tickets to see an Australian chap called Ryan Coffe who blends comedy and music in what turned out to be an utterly brilliant show!

            The second act that we saw was slightly less entertaining, and the local hosts who filled between the main acts really were bad, but all it all it was great to be back in a very English style traditional pub (called The Penny Black). If it weren’t for the slightly more aggressive aircon units, I could easily have tricked my brain into thinking it was back at The Masons for one night only!