Hot, sweaty and full of laughs

My year of comedy seems to have already landed me in North London more times this year than the whole of 2014 and 2015 put together. A mild exaggeration, but you get the point. It was Monday night and I was once again leaving my beloved South London and heading all the way to Caledonian Road. Perhaps for the month of May I shall exclusively only go to comedy events in South London, just to redress the balance. It seems only fair.

On this bizarrely warm April Monday though, the Pleasance Theatre had just too good an offering to pass up. For £5 (these nights just keep getting cheaper and cheaper), Hub Comedy promised an impressive looking line up of comedians trying out new material. The bill consisted of Rhys James, Lolly Adefope, Gareth Richards, Annie McGrath, Ivo Graham and Max and Ivan. Phew, and breathe. I had already missed one Hub comedy night due to bout of lurgy that left me wanting to kill everyone within a two foot radius and retreat under my duvet never to emerge again. I figured comedy was best skipped that night. So, having survived those few miserable days of illness where I’m sure at times it was touch and go (despite the protestations of the boyfriend), I was determined not to miss out a second time.

I had heard (as I’m sure you might have) great things about Lolly and she was plastered all over Soho Theatre for a brief spell. So she was a top draw for me, alongside Gareth Richards, who (lets face it) had me hooked from the second I heard the ‘Dave the fridge’ song. If you’re not a fan of the wonderful pairing of music and comedy, all I can say is shame on you.

Neither Gareth nor Lolly disappointed; from the nonsense of a song about printer ink to Lolly’s character comedy shining a hilarious light on society and the still insane ignorance that exists. Little did I know how good the rest of the line up was also going to be. There were a few rough patches (this is new material people, deal with it) but in that small, hot and sweaty room in North London, the laughter flowed freely. Every single comic was one I would pay to go and see again (reviews don’t get much better than that, right?) and Ivo Graham’s set at the end of the evening brought everything to a near perfect close. Running late and attempting to make it all the way from Kingston in a ridiculously short space of time, it merely gave him more comedy nuggets to spray us with (that might sound slightly wrong).

I could go on but for the sake of brevity and you actually reading the entire of this piece, I shall stop there in the hope your appetite has been sufficiently dampened. If you love comedy, check out the Pleasance for an array of gigs / pre-Edinburgh shows and check out each of these comedians individually. If there’s not someone there you like, you must be mad.

Get to the Pleasance Theatre, Carpenters Mews, North Road, London, N7 9EF

Pleasance on the Twitter 

Hub on the Twitter

Funnies from Rhys James, Lolly Adefope, Gareth Richards, Annie McGrath, Ivo Graham, Max and Ivan