I didn't have an excuse. But believe me, I wracked my brains. I wanted nothing less than to go to an interactive comedy night, an hour and a half away in Stoke Newington. But I'm dating again and have fallen into a routine of taking turns to "host". 'Captain Dude and the Dude Patrol', at Ryan's Bar on the Stoke Newington High Street, fell on her day ('her' henceforth referred to as 'my Brooky Wook').
Accepting Brooky Wook's invitation, I thought, might make my turn - inviting her to my ex-girlfriend's house for dinner - a little easier (on me, I imagine, not so much on her). So I said, 'yes,' and rode that Overground, somewhat reluctantly, to the scary, north-east corner of zone 2.
Call me an old curmudgeon, but the idea of painting, of making things, dressing up in old, jumble-sale clothes and competing for prizes, all of which was promised by its Facebook event description, made me want to stay home, wash my hair, catch up on my junk mail correspondence - anything to avoid the kind of interaction with strangers that sounded about as fun as being mugged.
I saw a guy at a comedy night, right here in West Hampstead, whose entire set consisted of a conversation with an audience member, about as engaging as being collared by a high street charity collector. By the end of it, he looked about ready to hand over his Direct Debit details, just so that he could go on with his life.
"The comedy's not amazing," Brooky Wook said, as we took our seats. "But the atmosphere's great." The atmosphere was pretty tense, from where I was sitting. I was terrified of being picked by the compère, Tom Bell, whose sprightly androgyny reminded me of a theme park animal trainer, who once plucked me from a crowd of otherwise happy holiday makers to perform with what wasn't the real Lassie but what looked good enough to pass.
I was 10 years old, and arrived with my family just before show time, managing to squeeze onto the front row of the 'Animal Actors on Location' attraction at Universal Studios Florida. I was aware that because of my proximity to the stage and the ease with which I could get there and back with minimum interruption to the crowd, I had the highest chance of being picked by the animal trainer. I was as terrified of him as I was of the dog, so I did my best to catch neither pair of eyes. But I guess they both smelled my fear and, before I knew it, I was on the stage, shaking Lassie's paw to my obvious embarrassment. (Why can't dogs smell that?)
But here, in the basement of Ryan's Bar, the front row was the only row. I took it with a big swig of my drink and finally relaxed into my seat. If Universal Studios wasn't such a 'dry' theme park, I might have had a better experience. But last night, at 'Captain Dude and the Dude Patrol', I had a surprisingly good time.
Bell made for an excellent compère, as comfortable on stage as he was in the massive "sleeping bag-come-coat" he picked out for himself from the jumble-sale. His comedy partner, Ed Weeks, was late, but no less funny. His punishment from Bell was the accusation of racism, eliciting a chorus of boos from the crowd, triggered by a hand signal designed by Bell in Weeks' absence.
Pippa Evans put in a good turn, acting alongside Bell in episode two of 'Plaice Invaders', the completely improvised soap opera set in a fish & chip shop in space. All of this, set to a soundtrack of the worst charity shop vinyl Bell could find and all the laughter we, in our crowd of 15, could muster.
"If you like finding furniture on the street," the Facebook event description went on, "you'll love Dude Patrol." I do and I did. But unlike stumbling across a broken wicker chair or a discarded coffee table, there was nothing wooden about these dudes. It's a comedy night worth checking out, if you live in the area. I might just make that one and and a half hour journey back out there, next month.
