Almost as good as being there

Another night, another stand-up gig in a brand new comedy 'club' miles from London.

It's worth pointing out that a British comedy 'club' is unlikely to be a purpose-built room with stage, microphone, dedicated spotlight and chairs all pointed in the same direction. It isn't even necessarily a bar that stages comedy every night of the week; a club is usually best thought of as 'an occasional night of comedy'.

That was certainly the case last night at the far end of the M4. To kick off the 'comedy club' idea the venue had linked up with the entirely laudable Help for Heroes charity so the room was full-to-overflowing with 300 or so punters. So far so good. Except that the stage was positioned directly opposite two massive pillars which effectively split the audience. It was only lit by swirling, multicoloured disco lighting.

The landlord's sense that his bar wasn't exactly screaming 'comedy' was what doubtless led to him screening captioned clips of televised stand-up on the absolutely massive video wall above the bar. So the audience had a choice between listening to my routine delivered live from the disco stage or reading (admittedly better) Adam Hills' jokes off the massive screen.

And so ends my stand-up year.