Get yourself to a local comedy night, mums! It’s good for the soul. The next one for the S-Wers among us, ‘South Circular Comedy’ at Putney Arts Theatre, 26 March and 30 April 2023! £10.60.
Ted Milligan, host, at the first night
Apollo at 9pm on the Telly is all very well, but the real thing, where you are breathless with the dread and thrill of possibly becoming next the target… not the same at all.
They’re difficult to catch, often one-offs in a random warehouse or church hall. Luckily for us, Putney Arts Theatre has just launched a monthly stand-up show hosted by Tom Milligan, one of their alumni from the theatre’s youth group. ‘The Studio’, a side chapel as-was, is intimate… perfect for comedy because No one. Is. Safe.
I turned up on my own, and noticed a loud bubble of noise coming from the bar. The demographic was younger than usual, so that’s a lesson to those theatres who are struggling to get bums on seats. It’s like a party atmosphere as we trickle in, and push for the back rows, like in chemistry class, don’t want to get picked or worse, picked on. Some cocky bastards finally sit at the front.
The dreaded ‘What’s y’name mate?’ heralds a battery of probing questions ‘Is that y’girlfriend?’ And killer asides. ‘Dating an older man. About the only way left for the under 30s to get on the property ladder.’
Ted’s high octane, fast-talking and lethal with the come-backs. But he also cringes guiltily with us, acutely aware that everything he’s spewing out is unspeakable in polite society, albeit what we’re all thinking. That’s comedy for you, you’re laughing to mask the embarrassment. It’s a breath of fresh air, or? A blast of putrid air, as we haul out our Deepest Darkest and shoot them down.
As societies go, Britain goes in for quite a bit of masking. On the Inscrutable-to-Openhearted spectrum, I would say we are roughly in the middle, possibly leaning more towards Open with every generation, which I applaud. In comparison, Japan would be off-the-scale Inscrutable while the US, say, are at the opposite end.
Ted presented 3 comedians, all very different, but all young up-and-coming, who pretty much covered every taboo! Couple dynamics, ‘How comes you’re so relaxed and she’s so tense?’; crappiest jobs ‘I’ve probably sent you all a parking fine’; racism in all its subtleties, ‘When they say they prefer blondes to an Asian girl, they mean whites’; and probably worst of all, imagining sex with dad…
We all need this, some space to laugh at life so get those friends together, get the tickets, or if that’s impossible to manage because everyone is so busy, get a ticket and go by yourself. I did, it’s fine, you’ll meet someone.
Maybe see you Sunday.
