Class
Last night. A true story.
There’s a man. Let’s call him Mick. Mick is having a drink in his local, the place he’s gone to relax in after work for the last twenty years or so. He’s at the bar, talking to a mate of his. The place has changed, to be honest - the clientele is younger now than it was, and posher, there are fewer of the old crowd, and it does food - but it’s still a decent pub. Homely, you know?
Tonight there’s football on the big screens and some comedy thing in the back. He gets talking to a nice couple. Turns out she’s doing a spot at the comedy herself, and the bloke’s there to support her. They say to Mick and his mate, ‘Come in with us, it’ll be good.’ He agrees, intrigued, though his mate says he doesn’t want to, he’ll stay in here. There’s been comedy every Thursday in the room at the back for years, but Mick’s never even thought about going before. As far as he knows, none of his mates have ever gone either.
Mick leaves the bar, walks through the function room, enters the place they used to call the snug. There’s three rows of creaky wooden chairs here. He sits at the back. Mick takes a couple of swigs of his beer, waits, has a chat about Man United with the nice couple, who have sat next to him. An Asian man gets up on stage, welcomes everyone to the evening, tells a few jokes. He’s pretty funny. Mick starts replying to him, joining in, having a bit of banter. People in front of him turn round. The compère looks a bit uncomfortable, but doesn’t say anything, just introduces the first act.
The first act is a man, a very - calculatedly - camp man, who keeps talking about how much cocaine he’s had. Mick doesn’t think he’s very funny. ‘Oi, mate, when’s the comedy start?’ The unfunny man ignores Mick, finishes his five minutes, and swaggers off.
The compère comes back on. ‘I see we’ve got UKIP in tonight,’ he says, seeming like he’s looking straight at Mick. The audience giggles, but Mick has no idea what he’s talking about.
The compère introduces another act. This one’s a student talking about his gap year in Bhutan. There’s nothing really for Mick to respond to, so he keeps quiet.
Time passes, the compère introducing act after act, most of them men, most of them talking sneeringly about Brexit, all of them doing jobs you’ve never heard of: ‘I’m in creative solutions.’ ‘I’m a graphic insights facilitator’. ‘I run my own artisanal pairing hub’.
Mick tries to join in. The compère asks him at one point what his name is, says it’s ‘great to have people like you here, Mick. What do you do?’ ‘I’m a postman.’ ‘Oh,’ says the compère, ‘How long you done that?’ ‘Twenty years,’ says Mick. ‘Oh,’ says the compère.
A few minutes later, one of the comedians mentions ‘firemen’. Mick shouts out, ‘you mean ‘firefighters’’. Everyone laughs. Mick has no idea why at first. And then he realises. He feels like he wants to go back to the main bar, but it would be rude to walk out now.
The compère gets up to introduce the last act of the evening, thanks everyone for coming, ‘especially Mick.’ Everyone laughs again.
The final act ends with another Brexit joke. The compère comes back on one last time. He finishes with ‘Cheers Mick, you’re what comedy’s all about. Come again mate.’ Mick stares at him. He wants to say something, but he knows he’s no comedian. He stands up, says goodbye to the nice couple and rushes out of the door into the cold night. He feels a bit... weird. He takes a deep breath, turns round, thinks about going back into his pub, but decides against it. He should probably have an early night.