Way Out West Comedy Club: The Griffin pub, Brentford, 2019
On a warm evening in June, I met up with a dear friend of mine and we went along to The Griffin Pub in Brentford for a night of free comedy and entertainment from the Way Out West Comedy Club. The comedy club has been going since 2011 and is the creation of Jim Kent who was also the compere for the evening and invited acts up from the audience to perform. In the room above the pub which held around thirty punters, we sat down on an old sofa at the front of the stage and Kent energetically bounded onto the small wooden stage to kick off proceedings. The line up featured two spoken word acts (Dave Floyd and Dave Smith), a guitar based comic singer (Jim Wolfe) and two comedians (Sally Firth: timid stage presence with killer funny lines and Isabelle Ryan: confident and likeable) who all delivered five minutes sets. The headliner was Italian comedian Valerio Marconi who had some wonderfully witty scenarios comparing living in Britain to his home country.
The night though belonged to Kent who had the audience singing a rousing rendition of his Wheelie Bin song. The room reminded me of a classic Fringe venue, and it was great see new comedians and acts making tentative steps into the world of comedy and entertainment. I am delighted to support nights such as this and am planning on attending another Way Out West comedy night when it resumes after the summer break from October 2019.