Last night I went to a friend's comedy night in the cosy setting of Aces and Eight's basement room (Tufnell Park). Racing Minds, a group of four comedians, set the scene of a gentlemen's clubs where their scrooge-like friend doesn't believe in the point of Easter any more. The first half of the show parodies Dickens' Christmas Carol, (there, an Easter Carol) whilst the second half, friend now converted, reenacts an Easter story that a humorously Alzheimers-stricken old man recalls, the details filled in by the audience.
This sets up the framework for the comedy, and a challenging framework too - on our night, they had to tell the story of 'The Creaking of the Rusty Door', set in a Turkish Delight shop on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, about a man named something like Cummerbund, whose great secret was that he collected chocolate buttons. Try finding multi-faceted puns about that!
I won't try to retell the comedy since I wouldn't do it justice, and have a habit of remembering the punchline but not the joke. But I will say that it was refreshingly witty, absurd and good-natured, as the group allows you to steer them into pretty choppy waters.
Their next show is on Tuesday 16th April, only a fiver, and, as is the wonderful way with improvised comedy, guaranteed to be totally bespoke! You can follow them on Twitter here.
