By David Tingley

I don’t mind admitting it, I am a fan of stand-up comedy. I often find myself perusing the comedy section of BBC Sounds – with my go-to guilty pleasure being Tim Vine – so against this background, I was delighted to see the comedy night of Hurst Festival had survived the Covid treatment.

Better than that, here was a comedy club I could be part of the front row. In practical terms there was a 20 or so of us on a Zoom call providing the real laughter track – with the output being broadcast to YouTube simultaneously.

Local comic Stephen Grant was MC for the event, live from his home in Hassocks. There is something fantastic about seeing Stephen gigging on home turf. The jibes about the poshness of different ends of College Lane, and references to the nearby gossip groups providing a rather less than exciting reality of what the village is talking about online! I always think it’s easier to take any comedic critique from someone who lives here.

Technically it was a pretty slick operation. Well, if you ignore the dropout of headline act Chris Turner midway through his set. The irony of the guy connected from Colorado having a worse internet connection than those of us in rural Sussex felt quite enjoyable I must admit!

The acts were terrific with many of the gags centring around lockdown. Maff Brown performed his set from his home in South London, Jo Caulfield came live from Edinburgh and, as described, Chris Turner was behind his computer screen in the USA.

I hadn’t seen Chris before but his special talent for creating raps on the subjects suggested from the audience was impressive. He had to weave in, among other things, Novichok cocktails, internet dating and Daryn’s cat litter. Chris included reference to an Airbnb in New York where the owner had an 18 year old diabetic cat ‘aim the proper way’ – which was hilarious!

All in all, it was a great evening and felt more like a comedy club than I had imagined. Just to complete the night I paid my wife £20 for the two beers, and sat in the car on the drive for half an hour afterwards!

You can watch the whole set here, on YouTube.

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