Laughter Lounge is a worthwhile night out that changes up from the usual clubs and pubs of student life.
-
6
One of the more sober freshers’ events this week is the ever-loved Laughter Lounge. To mark Freshers’ 2017 the comedians kicking off the first Laughter Lounge of the year were First Dates star Kelly Convey and American comedian Dave Fulton, with Phil Jerrod returning to host.
Phil Jerrod’s presence on stage was powerful, to say the least: he was hyperactive, loud, and captivating. As all great comedic hosts do, he very quickly picked a member of the audience to target all of his jokes towards throughout the show. In this incident, it meant that studying Zoology became the central focus for the whole evening.
The night swiftly moved on to Kelly Convey’s part, a First Dates star who without hesitation addressed the age-long controversial topic of if women are funny enough to be comedians – the answer is obviously yes. Kelly was hilarious, and I particularly enjoyed her chav makeover partway through, topped off with big hoop earrings that emerged out of nowhere. The best part of her bid, however, has to be the revelation that she used to pretend her little brother was her child at the age of 14 which got laughs from across the audience.
Another hit with the audience was her focus on social media (her whole act was very clearly tailored towards students), addressing the stereotypical self-obsessed millennials with a commentary on the value of likes on social media. It seems self-explanatory but your crush = high value, next door neighbour Dorris who likes everything = low value.
Headlining the night was Dave Fulton, commenting on the usual humorous British/America divide – rain, guns, drinking limits, Trump and Brexit. I particularly enjoyed his comment on British citizens ability to hold down their liquor better than Americans and the way we’ve all lost optimism for life and just live for the weekend – always funny to hear an outsiders perspective of our culture. As a midlander it was great to have the North/South divide brought up, with the roundup summary ‘it’s a small country, they can hear what you say’.
Whether it was just a spell of a bad cold during the show but Dave’s consistent coughing throughout, American accent and really fast-paced talking kept making me think of Rick from Rick and Morty. This in itself was particularly entertaining, especially when hearing him talking solidly for 15 minutes straight in a build up to a punch line about box wine, cocaine, guns and blocks of wood.
The entire show was entirely freshers’ focused down to near enough every detail, which is a massive bonus for all freshers attending. As a post-grad, I found the constant reminder of my lack of fun and freedom less enjoyable and more in tone with impending doom. Regardless, I would recommend all laughter lounges across the year – for £4, there’s no reason not too. It’s funny, it’s lighthearted, it takes your mind of university for a few hours and it’s a great way to have a night out of the house without getting pitch black drunk because we all know trips to the pub for ‘one’ drink never end that way.
