Lady Garden and Friends at the Wilmington Arms

Lady Garden and Friends at the Wilmington Arms

30 March, 2010
by: Sjk

Sarah Kendell enjoys a cracking night of cake and hilarity at Lady Garden's latest sketch comedy night.

I should know better as a reviewer than sitting in the front of a comedy show with my notebook out, but unfortunately I'm a sucker for comfy seats. Arriving at the Wilmington Arms for Lady Garden's sketch show, we're presented with two options – basic bench seats or the inviting candlelit tables, all of which are reserved – except the ominous-looking table located spitting distance from stage. Dare we subject ourselves to the equivalent of a flashing neon sign above our heads saying “heap scorn and abuse here”? The comfort of our behinds wins out and we enter the lion's den. During the approximately 150 minute long show, we get asked out, ogled, insulted and presented with three medals by the various acts. Not too shabby for a Monday night's work.

Public humiliation aside (which, I'll admit, my seat choice made me a willing participant in), the girls' show is nothing short of delightful. It didn't even need to be that good - they'd won me over inside the first 10 minutes by a) offering free cake at the door and b) starting their compere duties with a dance routine to the best worst girl band song of the '90s, 'C'est La Vie' by B'Witched. First act the Penny Dreadfuls keep the laughter coming, their quirky sketches ranging from the time-traveller sent to stop the apocalypse (aka the Lib Dems winning the election), to a family breakfast table scene with the father-son roles cleverly reversed. Though the most vertically challenged of the group, Thom Tuck is the most memorable – his brilliantly strange facial expressions are used to perfection in a sketch where a sailor tells a series of increasingly ridiculous old sea myths.

Then Dennis and Don Hazeley (aka Rufus Jones and Alex Kirk) present a preview of their show No Son of Mine, coming to a couple of Camden venues this April. I'll definitely be buying tickets – the duo's dynamic is both hilarious and engaging, making it hard to look away for even a second. Here's a taster – son Dennis is an amateur actor whose sexuality is “a mystery” and who's currently starring in a play about two gay Taliban members at Tooting Broadway Arts Centre. Father Don is a Grimsby car salesman whose favourite way to woo the ladies is “the magic hand trick”.

Headliners Mr Winchester and Tommy, bedecked in '70s suits and hairdos, promise a half hour of 'classic entertainment', not like those surreal tossers from The Mighty Boosh. After meeting each audience suggestion for their improvisational skit with a derisive insult, they completely ignore them all and present their own unashamedly racist sketch involving a Pakistani man, a bus stop and a rucksack. It walks a fine line between offence and amusement, but luckily the duo's willingness to make fun of absolutely everyone in the audience takes the material from awkward to hilarious.

Interspersed between acts are the girls' own sketches, packed with energy, innovation and moments of genuine comic genius. There's Bev the Yorkshire WAG whose husband's easy listening business has gone great guns since the recession, because “everyone wants to listen to a bit of Michael Bubble when they're buying things they can't afford.” Then there's the bitter divorcee yoga teacher, instructing her pupils to “let go of all your worries, like whether that conniving bitch is better in bed than you even though she's got eczema under her eyes.”

Overall, the ladies emerge as a strong voice for the less prominent sketch genre, as well as begetters of the sweetest Monday night comedy line-up around. Ascending the stage for the last time with beers in hand to thank everyone for coming, they look as happy as the audience, and on the first night of the working week, that's no mean feat.

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Sjk