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The Comedy Night That Never Was.



Myself and Glyn are currently sitting on the train from King's Cross to Hitchin; on our way home from the comedy night that never was.

Tonight was supposed to be this year’s final Leicester Square Theatre installment of Mostly Comedy (we still have two more Hitchin dates to go). We had a cracking line-up booked, including Red Dwarf’s Norman Lovett, Foster’s Best Newcomer Nominee Sam Fletcher, Time Out’s “rising star” Nish Kumar and us (no prefix). It was a great gig on paper – but sadly no-one wanted to come and see it.

That’s not strictly true. There probably were plenty of people who wanted to come and see it, but only two people booked - and when the performers outweigh the audience 5/2 it’s less of a comedy night and more of a hostage situation.

We’d probably have to rebill the gig as Mostly Comedians.

I think the problem is we haven’t quite got our marketing right. The London gig is obviously up against a lot of competition (they’ve got The Trocadero for a start)  – but we do consistently pull good line-ups with a strong headliner; this year we've had Phil Kay, Josh Widdicombe, Barry From Watford and James Acaster, to name just a few.

The first two London dates of the year sold pretty well, but they were both recommended in Time Out. Since then we’ve been a little unlucky: important listings have been missed here and there, shows have been booked on the same day as the Wimbledon Men’s Final (7th July) and the England v. Germany match (tonight), and consequently we’ve missed out. Missed out and lost money, which is what hurts most.

Hopefully we’ll turn it round. Come the New Year we hope to run the gig on a more appealing night; something towards the end of the week, when people are more likely to want to come out. We’ll also endeavour to be more on the case when it comes to press and marketing; speaking to the publications more directly, asking what they want from us and when they want it.

All was not lost: we had a nice chat with Norman – and had a cup of tea and a catch up with Sam Fletcher; sharing photos of kittens (Sam’s), cats (mine) and babies (Glyn’s).

Let’s hope that next year we get it right – and at least we’ve got this Thursday’s Hitchin Mostly Comedy to look forward to.

Thursday's Hitchin Mostly Comedy features WitTank, Joey Page and Luke Benson. To book, click here, or click here to download free episodes of our More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast.


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