02 Aug 2023
Deborah Heath has much to laugh about at the annual Verulamium Park gagfest…
Ever invested in local outdoor entertainment, this week I took a break from the Roman Theatre Festival and travelled to the other side of Verulamium Park to enjoy some stand-up at the Comedy Garden.
My friends and I chose Thursday night due to the fantastic line up: Ivo Graham, Isy Suttie, Fern Brady and headliner Phil Wang, compered by Suzi Ruffell. If like us you enjoy organised fun then this is the event for you.
The whole event felt very relaxed, like a stroll around your actual garden if you had invited 500 odd people plus associated street food vendors to set up shop by your tomato plants. There were giant flowers and bugs strewn around the place to add to the effect.
With three intervals you could wander between your seat and the arena to nip to the toilet or grab a drink. On this point, I must add that the toilet queue was very well organised and although they weren’t as plush as the Roman Theatre Festival toilets, they were plentiful and offered soap and water rather than hand sanitiser which gets a tick from me.
The bar was also run well, with a very good value deal of four cans (beer, wine or spirits with mixers) for £20. This cleverly encouraged people to stock up which contributed to the shorter queues. The street food situation was a bit more hairy, with long winding queues at each of the
(admittedly wide) range of stalls. Judging by the number of punters trying to sneak into the show late, clutching their illicit burritos and desperately hoping not to attraction the attention of the compere, I would recommend either eating beforehand or waiting until the end of the evening when
the queues had dwindled somewhat.
I was quizzed on entry about whether I had brough in any sweets which felt a bit odd. An array of fruit and veg had been confiscated from a previous punter which gave the security desk the air of a farmers’ market and added to the rustic feel. The moral to this story is that however much you like the organised fun of a picnic, reign it in for this gig and just bring a bottle of water.
Organised fun was very much the theme of the night in fact, starting with Ivo Graham describing how he turned someone else’s New Year party into a recreation of TV game show ‘The Traitors’. I have never actually watched the show but this didn’t matter as the portrait he painted of someone taking a social activity far too seriously in the face of general indifference or hostility was both
painful and familiar. Though he stumbled over his delivery sometimes this fitted in with his general persona of someone too ill-equipped for life to even deal with Harry Potter Top Trumps.
Peep Show star Isy Suttie explored the pros and cons of going off-menu when buying a Christmas present for her partner, who she represented as a kind of introverted Welsh Gollum. Such are the risks of marrying a comedian.
Her energy was more gentle and geared towards story-telling than the other acts, but this made it no less hilarious. The crowning glory for me was when she got out her guitar and ended with a comic and yet strangely moving song showcasing the sheer range of her talent – I won’t spoil it in case you ever get the chance to hear it but there was a great twist at the end for fans of old-school French coursebook Tricolore.
Fern Brady was next, and took things on more of a romantic bent. She gave it a unique perspective, though, explaining how major milestones such as illness and betrothal are different to someone with autism. It was fascinating and made you think about neuro-diversity and different world views, whilst also being very, very funny, and she even managed to fit in an extended dialogue between her breasts.
Headliner Phil Wang deviated from the ‘Organised Fun’ theme, being much more observational, but as this theme definitely wasn’t planned and I’ve only very tenuously managed to shoe-horn the others into it we will let him off.
Wang had some cracking jokes and a wonderfully easy manner but as the headliner he was something of an anti-climax. I didn’t feel he built up as much of a relationship with the crowd as the other acts, although other punters were laughing themselves silly so it’s all subjective.
His views on the English horror of re-heating rice were spot on though, and his (slightly too) on-going joke about the mispronunciation of “Verulamium” was hilarious and gave some local colour.
Suzi Ruffell did a fantastic job with the trickier role of compere, keeping proceedings rolling with impressive efficiency. Her description of familiar parenting problems such as keeping your toddler away from your cat’s anus and being asked about sperm banks by strangers in coffee shops were fabulously funny.
Being the compere, though, we did get a lot of her with a small set after each of the three intervals, and I did slightly wish that some of the time could have gone to middle three comedians who were all a long way from outstaying their welcome.
The set-up was fantastic, with the variety of the acts meaning the even if one of them didn’t float your boat you knew another would be along in a minute.
It also meant that you had a range of styles and energies, and I get the sense that two and a half hours of constant gag-gag-gag would have started to wear you down in a way that they managed to avoid completely.
I would certainly recommend a trip down the garden, and we will be returning next year.
We will be keeping a close eye on the long-range forecast, though. It is an entirely outdoor event, as you would expect from the name, and the night before we visited it had rained continuously which must impact on even the most buoyant sense of humour.
Luckily the worst we had to put up with was the sun glaring in our eyes for the first few acts. This soon transitioned to beautiful twilight and, combined with the trappings of park life such as geese flying over, the Cathedral bells ringing and dog-walkers loudly calling for their absurdly name pets, it created a magical evening.
