Being out of the country for the best part of last year, one of the things I most looked forward to upon return was revisiting London’s comedy scene. Countries such as China and Cuba, while intensely fascinating, tended to be low on laughs. I fled a comedy gig in Las Vegas after discovering that ‘comedy’ loosely translated as ‘ridiculing Democrats’ and extolling the virtues of a proposed bill which would allow firearms in locked cars on school grounds. See? A laugh a minute.

With this in mind, I was very excited to be invited to KnockTheBag’s comedy night at RichMix in Shoreditch. Featuring an eclectic line up of Holly Walsh, Joseph Morpurgo, Rob Carter, Spencer Jones and headliner Reginald D Hunter, the event was compered by Matthew Crosby and proved to be a thoroughly entertaining evening.

Starting off the night was Holly Walsh. A regular on panel shows such as Mock The Week and Just a Minute, Walsh has been a full time member of the comedy circuit since 2006. Casual, yet engaged, she took us through a range of anecdotes from nights of drunkenness with her brother to the elusive mystery that strip clubs still possess for her. She compared the latter to the teachers’ staff room at school; a place enshrouded in intrigue where you are never quite sure what lurks within (I can tell her now, after stumbling into a strip club in San Francisco some years ago, intriguing they ain’t. Unless you are intrigued by why a middle aged man would choose to drool lasciviously at a girl a third of his age, with no actual hope of gratification while sitting next to Dean from Accounting). Walsh also wryly commented how it shouldn’t be a mark of female empowerment that strip clubs forbid men from touching the women. That is, after all, the general consensus for most jobs.

Following Walsh was comedy singer-songwriter,  Rob Carter. Carter regaled us with two songs in a style reminiscent of Flight of the Conchords. The first was about Putin’s reign of terror (with an amusingly constructed chorus of ‘Crimea River’) and how if he just chilled out and took a bath (‘Putin some bubbles’), things might be alright. A far more pacifistic approach than I have been known to suggest for him (Putin, not Carter). His second song told tale of a mystery sport that involved gathering sticks, planting them in the ground and running between them for approximately one week. This mystery stick-sport sounded suspiciously like cricket but rather than accuse Carter of besmirching a beloved English sport, I shall give him the benefit of the doubt.

Next was my personal favourite act of the evening – Joseph Morpurgo. Morpurgo usually performs with the improv troupe Austentacious  and could be found here playing the role of famous British pianist and broadcaster Joseph Cooper. Morpurgo was a delight, not breaking character once, and inviting a man from the audience to come up on stage to be his piano student. The character of Cooper radiated enthusiasm teemed with creepiness; sort of like if the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had reformed and become a music teacher. When the mock-piano was played, a tune was emitted and the student was asked to identify it. If you thought your intricate knowledge of Rachmaninov would stand you in good steed here, think again. Instead, we bore witness to a variety of perplexing noises such as the sound of Morpurgo/Cooper chopping up mayonnaise in a pan with a pair of scissors. An act which possessed its own lyrical beauty.

The penultimate act was Spencer Jones. Jones was like a present-day Peewee Herman (for all you 80s kids and Tim Burton fans) who altered the tone with a plethora of musical sticks and some alarming costumes. The crowd loved him. I was personally torn between being amused and horrified as Jones, with his fake eyes, indecipherable sounds and decapitated doll reminded me of a creature one might mace to death in a nightmare.

Last up was the Georgia born headliner, Reginald D Hunter, a seasoned veteran, of the panel-show scene. Privileged were we as he informed us that this was his first foray back into stand-up comedy since 2014. Hunter has just returned from a brief sojourn to the US where he was reunited with the moral hotbed of sin and repentance that is the Deep South.  To tell someone in the South that you’re not religious is akin to telling someone in Britain you don’t like Withnail and I he mused. Talking about everything from the Pistorius trial to why people crave validation from the opposite sex, Hunter made sure to cover all areas of the comedy spectrum. He did slightly lose me when talking about his shifting preference for the type of women he dated, explaining that while he used to prefer intelligent, political women nowadays he felt somewhat more comfortable with the type of lady who obsessed over shoes and shopping. ‘I can fix her shoe dilemmas,’ he explained, ‘I can’t fix Syria’. I understand his point but I suspect Hunter might change his mind next time there’s a natural disaster and his date is obliviously skipping around and asking who wants a water fight.

If you’d like to revel in a great mix of eclectic comedy, the next Knock2Bag event is on May 20^th and tickets are available here http://knock2bag.co.uk/

All images credited to Fung Wah Man / Knock2Bag Comedy