After the success of the going out and laughing at people night we had last Monday night, we decided to go ahead and do it spontaneously again. When you want to do some spontaneous laughing in London, there is no place better than Piccadilly Circus' Comedy Store. It basically offers some of the best selection of stand up comedy for a very reasonable price... sure, they make up for the low price tickets with the price they charge for the drinks, once inside, but we're choosing to ignore that fact.
One-And-Only-Daniela and I both adore this place. There's only one thing we don't agree about our watching experience of it. I (being someone who doesn't mind a teensy bit of attention and, for some reason, has this need for someone to take the piss out of me every so often) love the front row. Seriously, can't get enough of it. The prospect that someone who is funny for a living might make fun of me in some way makes me highly giddy... One-And-Only-Daniela, on the other hand, could not think of anything worse.
For a normal friendship, one that's based on a level of compromise and give and take, it might mean that occasionally we sit on the front row, and occasionally we don't. However, our friendship isn't exactly built that way... instead, we consist of someone who feels very stubborn and passionate about something (OAOD) and someone who also feels that way for about 5 minutes until the thought of debating the topic any further knackers them out and they just can't be arsed to talk about it anymore (me). We sat on the front row once, but that was because we were with others who did the debating for me, otherwise, One-And-Only-Daniela will always win.
Having said that, I managed to convince her to sit on the second row, on the basis that stand up comedians never bother with that row unless the people on that row are being loud. One-And-Only-Daniela practically becomes invisible in stand up shows; her survival instinct kicking in and causing her to camouflage into her surroundings in a way that would make a chameleon jealous. So we settled into the second row, feeling particularly safe from any onslaught when the people in front of us seemed to become quite vocal and even insulted the comedian at one point... that, of course, just set the comedian off on a tirade and One-And-Only-Daniela settled down comfortably, knowing that they had just given him all the ammo he needed for the rest of his act without ever deviating from these people...
... It is something I've never understood. Why insult a person who is funny for a living? That is never going to end well for you. All you will do is just give him reason to rip into you in a way that is ten times more clever than anything you could even think of, right in front of a bunch of people who will laugh heartily at your expense. If you don't want to get picked on, don't sit on the front row... just like One-And-Only-Daniela.
For me, there always seems to be some kind of exaggeration effect that takes hold when I go to watch someone do stand up live. However funny I might have found their joke if I had watched in on my TV at home, if I'm watching it live, guaranteed I will find it 10 times funnier. This was proved when one particularly hilarious guy came on with a guitar and did some amazing stand up about current affairs and what's going on the world today. No doubt this man was hilarious. Me and One-And-Only-Daniela laughed a lot throughout his act. I think I even started crying at one point and my stomach and cheeks hurt after his act had finished... there was just one problem... I don't watch the news nor do I read a newspaper. I haven't done either of those things for about three years. I live on the basis that the world is too depressing and when I watched or read about it, I was just getting depressed with it. So I stopped. If anything happened that was absolutely massive, it would eventually start trending on facebook or twitter and I could then choose if I wanted to find out anymore about it. I'm not saying this is a healthy way of looking at the world, but it's certainly made me happy so I've continued to do it...
... The problem with that is that when a comedian comes on stage to talk about things solely in the news or in the world around me, there is a large chance I'm not going to have a single clue what it is that he is talking about. And this was true, of his entire act, I probably understood about 10% of it. The rest went completely over my head. The whole thing consisted of:
Comedian: Makes joke about current events and sings song about it
OAOD and I: Laugh heartily and genuinely
Me: Turns to OAOD. What is that story he's talking about?
OAOD: No idea.
Me: So why are we laughing?
OAOD: Because it's clearly very funny and clever
Me: Yes, but why is it funny and clever?
OAOD: I don't know, but it is.
Me: Fair enough.
We weren't even making up the laughs, we genuinely thought this man was hilarious. I cannot work it out at all...
We also ended up dancing afterwards and not getting home until 4am, whilst discovering that the McDonalds which is scarily located 30 seconds from my new house, is also open 24 hours, which is not going to bode well for any late nights returning home, and the continuation of my diet. But, if I'm honest, the memories start to get hazy at that point, so I'm not going to go into much more detail of that... because I can't.
Peace out my lovelies.
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