In which I go to Canary Wharf
May. 17th, 2006 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shark_hatDid you know there was a Canary Wharf Comedy Club? I did not. Until I found out, obviously. It is not the sort of place one intuitively associates with having a good old laugh.
It was a peculiar evening. The whole of Docklands is odd, of course, having all been built in the last 20 years (maybe even 10) on redundant docks. It looks like a cross between New York and nowhere at all. The scale of everything is wrong: buildings too tall, but not tall enough to be skyscrapers; roads too wide, but not wide enough to be boulevards. The thoroughfares go into/through buildings in a disconcerting manner. In a film I think it would be the sort of creepy futuristic place that you're supposed to think is a utopia but it turns out by a not-hidden-well-enough twist to be full of brain-sucked clones or something. Or maybe I just thought that because of all the people in suits. It's also very un-Londony, and indeed un-English, in a way that even the utterly characterless edge-of-town office parks aren't. I couldn't find many pictures of it from ground level (lots of impressive skyline ones, eg on Wikipedia) but here's one.
One good thing about the area is it's very easy to leave. Nice conspicuous tube stations, nice quick line. (Yes, railway persons in my readership, the DLR is whizzy too.)
The club night was in one of those corporate venues like a conference room in a hotel, but with an enormously high ceiling which I think would overpower almost any event, and certainly did comedy no favours. Not surprisingly, it was a fairly unresponsive audience- I was impressed at how the comedians got anything back. I might try and see John Fothergill, Steve Willimas or Andrew Maxwell again, in a better atmosphere. Ed Byrne was good- a nice bit on ju-jitsu, and on sleeping in. Kitty Flanagan's set was funny, but bothered me somehow. I actually had a good time and laughed a lot- I think it's just easier to write about the bad than the good. You could get a pie delivered at the interval! I think this is a brilliant innovation and should be taken up by other venues. I did not have a pie. I feel smug, yet wistful.
It was a peculiar evening. The whole of Docklands is odd, of course, having all been built in the last 20 years (maybe even 10) on redundant docks. It looks like a cross between New York and nowhere at all. The scale of everything is wrong: buildings too tall, but not tall enough to be skyscrapers; roads too wide, but not wide enough to be boulevards. The thoroughfares go into/through buildings in a disconcerting manner. In a film I think it would be the sort of creepy futuristic place that you're supposed to think is a utopia but it turns out by a not-hidden-well-enough twist to be full of brain-sucked clones or something. Or maybe I just thought that because of all the people in suits. It's also very un-Londony, and indeed un-English, in a way that even the utterly characterless edge-of-town office parks aren't. I couldn't find many pictures of it from ground level (lots of impressive skyline ones, eg on Wikipedia) but here's one.
One good thing about the area is it's very easy to leave. Nice conspicuous tube stations, nice quick line. (Yes, railway persons in my readership, the DLR is whizzy too.)
The club night was in one of those corporate venues like a conference room in a hotel, but with an enormously high ceiling which I think would overpower almost any event, and certainly did comedy no favours. Not surprisingly, it was a fairly unresponsive audience- I was impressed at how the comedians got anything back. I might try and see John Fothergill, Steve Willimas or Andrew Maxwell again, in a better atmosphere. Ed Byrne was good- a nice bit on ju-jitsu, and on sleeping in. Kitty Flanagan's set was funny, but bothered me somehow. I actually had a good time and laughed a lot- I think it's just easier to write about the bad than the good. You could get a pie delivered at the interval! I think this is a brilliant innovation and should be taken up by other venues. I did not have a pie. I feel smug, yet wistful.
