Adam Bloom at the Fox

I do enjoy comedy clubs. What I find surprising is that more folk don't. What's not to like?

Friday night at my local club attracted a sparse audience. The problem is that its a bit of an amateur affair and you just make reservations on line, not pay for them. So if something else turns up, people just don't turn up. And Friday, a glorious evening turned up, and Andy Murray engaged in a lengthy semi-final at Wimbledon, so many of the "reserved" tables were empty. Which was a pity as it was a good night with all three comics on the bill being very decent even if not household names. First on was Carey Marx who I had never heard of, but was far better for an opening act than one might expect. A relaxed funny performance on a very sweaty night.

Now, I had brought my young trainee along, and we had tried to find a perch at the back, but the MC (who also does the chairs, the bookings - yes you see its run on a shoe-string) persuaded us to take up a reserved, but untaken, table at the front. Now as anyone knows, the golden rule for the audience at a comedy club is never sit at the front. And the second rule is don;'t break the golden rule. Well Thibault and I survived the opening act, but not Dave Johns, the ageing Geordie who was next on the bill. He came on announcing that he hadn't played the place in 12 years, which makes me feel old as I remember him comparing this club all those years ago. Can't really be as long as 12 years...

Anyway, you can't really be sat at the front with a bloke half your age and not face an onslaught of homo-erotic banter. Even worse when he discovered that we were lawyers. Obviously, I am broad-minded enough  to bear the homosexual innuendo, but I did take offence at the suggestion that (a) we might do conveyancing and (b) charge £300 for anything. I wouldn't do stapling at that rate! All this played out in front of another senior pension lawyer I know and who also happens to live in Palmers Green but more wisely had reserved a table at the back and out of firing range. Still she had a good chat with us, but I think she was more than happy not to swap places. Not sure we will ever be able to face each other across a negotiating table again though!

Last up was Adam Bloom, a short slightly hyperactive Jewish comic. He has been on the comedy circuit for years - he used to have a series of short radio shows on Radio 4 called the Trouble with Adam Bloom as I recall. Now, if you see some of the top comics  on TV they ave a very measured delivery, no doubt honed by doing precisely the same routine a hundred times having rehearsed it a thousand times. and some have a an incredibly slow delivery as if they are just making it up, eg Dylan Moran. Not Adam. He has the style of  someone who needs to tell jokes to save his life and has to meet an exacting quota - it sort of bubbles out. He isn't top drawer, but very entertaining and it was all good material that I had not heard before. Frankly you can't ask for much more. And only £9 and you get at a table to rest your pint on. What more can you ask for? (Well apart from a table at the back.)