Greenwich Comedy Festival

Festivals for comedians range from the bafflingly appalling through to the most wonderful moments you’ll experience in your career. The main struggle with comedy at festivals is that you’re competing with bands, and no matter how voguish comedy is at the moment, you’re still hard pressed to compete with guitars and rhymes. And you always get a shitter PA system; I will never forget a tent full of bemused people watching my mouth move but hearing nothing as the whole experience was drowned out by an aging but still enthusiastic Human League.

So when you get a dedicated comedy festival (that isn’t Edinburgh – which is exceptional and mental) it’s a delight. And Greenwich is among the best around. It’s probably the only Comedy Festival that takes place within a World Heritage site (unless someone’s started a gig that I don’t know about on Ayer’s Rock or in the Great Pyramid of Giza). It’s an enormous circus tent with a few smaller tents dotted around serving booze and overpriced food. The pies were nice, don’t get me wrong, but ONE POUND FOR GRAVY?! I’ll make my own thanks very much (not a euphemism).

And the line-ups are brilliant, over the two nights I did I performed with – Tim Key, Holly Walsh, Dan Antopolski, Tim Minchin, Tom Stade, Seann Walsh and Mickey Flanagan. That is some talent.

Of course it being a festival it wasn’t without its quirks, for example on the first night cabling falling from the roof into the audience which led to some tosspot taking photos of it and calling his lawyer despite not being injured in the slightest. That’s the festival spirit, isn’t it? Having your lawyer on speed-dial.

Also there was musical entertainment while the crowds waited, I was fortunate enough to catch a local band who’d been booked last minute, a family affair with Mum, Dad and two young daughters all playing together. You’ll forgive my lack of humanity for suggesting that the very idea of a family band is nauseating. They did, however, reclaim my heart when the seven year old daughter led them all in a rendition of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’.

That was the highlight of the sights, apart from watching the good ol’ boy taxi drivers who’d turned up to see Mickey (‘e done well for ‘imself), aspirationally stood around with glasses of Pimms eyeing the fruit in the glass suspiciously as if it were poison.

Never let it be said that the acts aren’t pampered at festivals, I mean just take a look at our marvellous fruit bowl. Perfect. I specifically wrote ahead and asked for five manky grapes and three shitty apples.

And the treats didn’t finish there. On the same night in a different part of town the Mercury Awards were being announced, with a backstage full of flowing champagne, Cristal, Dry Martinis. Not to be out-done, the festival provided us with the God of all Drinks – BLACK TOWER GERMAN WINE!

Confusingly, it’s German Chilean Merlot that’s been to Durham as well. Talk about well travelled. One bottle of this shit has got a carbon footprint bigger than Jeremy Clarkson.