The Builder's Arms: A Comedic Sanctuary for the Vulgar, Absurd, and Hilarious

Upon hearing of a free comedy routine on Monday nights in South Kensington, my two roommates and I enthusiastically threw on warm clothes and headed for the Holborn Tube Station. After our exit from the tube station in South Kensington we were met with high end shops and red brick buildings which I found to be reminiscent of a London inhabited by the unrealistically rich and content. We arrived at the Builder's Arms with full wallets—not for admission to the upstairs comedy club, but rather for a supplementary pint or two to serve us with alcohol-induced amusement (against the disappointing routines) or a potential comedic enhancer (for those who have a natural talent for hilarity). After a pilgrimage to the land of Guinness and cider, we followed the bellows and screeches of human laughter upstairs.

The space upstairs was teeming with Londoners of all shapes and sizes. In the front row, not more than a foot or two from the mic stand and the comic, young college girls giggled behind faces that spoke of a certain embarrassment from delivering flattering bouts of laughter so close to the young man telling his jokes. Older businessmen grinned through their pint glasses as they managed to watch both the young girls and the comedian. In the back, we sat down on a black couch and attempted to blend ourselves into the performance that had started without us. Immediately, I recognized a dynamic between the small crowd (numbering no more than 25) and the single comedian on stage. It seemed as if this all was an unspoken feedback experiment that the comedian performed behind the facade of a comedy routine. Jokes and bits that drew out laughter from the crowd were elaborated on until the crowd was exhausted (either from lack of air or from the novelty of the joke) and those that were met with blank stares and sympathetic chuckles were immediately curtailed. In one instance the comedian even acknowledged his inability to make us laugh, humbled himself before us, and continued onto his next joke in aims of redemption.

The performance was also especially amusing because the nature of the comedy club allowed for certain concessions that would not be granted in other venues. Specifically, the comedians frequently took out their notes of their routines (which were often scribbled on old receipts or cocktail napkins) when they felt they could no longer elaborate on their bit. Under-the-breath mutters meant to be distinguished from comedic speak but still meant to be heard by the audience were hilarious by nature. In one instance, the comedian said something along the lines of, (in a whisper)"What did I want to talk about?...Oh yeah, you guys are going to dig this. So the other day..." and immediately we were provided with a certain set of expectations for the laugh factor which I did not think he would meet, but surprisingly he managed to keep his promise and we laughed endlessly just as he said we would.

I also managed to draw certain notions about what we find funny from the performance. At times, I felt that the presentation of the joke and the demeanor of the comedian meant more than the content of the joke itself. I found one comedian to be surprisingly unsettled, (probably in part due to his constant red bull consumption, and he did not fail to show his enthusiastic slurping from his aluminum and blue companion between his demonstrations) yet his stuttering and nervousness made him charismatic and immediately likable. Another comedian adopted a cynical demeanor and he was not hesitant to use the full extent of his profane vocabulary to contemplate the funny 'dark' things about life. Though I did not find his presentation of himself to be as funny as the awkward red bull baron, I found his jokes to have a more prolific meaning, resulting in an overall equal evaluation of the two comics.

At the end of the performance, I made my way downstairs and lit a cigarette with my roommate. A familiar voice behind me asked for a lighter, and I turned around to find the dark cynic comic standing behind me asking for fire for his tobacco. I commented on how much I liked his performance, and he smiled and managed to make a remark that suited the theme of his routine all too well. We parted and I realized that his performance on stage perhaps wasn't a performance at all—but maybe instead a glorified public rant of his inner thoughts.

The performance atmosphere at the Builder's Arms is an intimate experience that I would highly recommend to anyone with an empty Monday night and a hankering for some comic relief. At the end of the night my abdomen ached from excessive laughter and a belt that was notched one hole too soon.

-Spencer Pratt
UCLA