When Spy heard that the Museum of London (MoL) would be hosting a comedy night, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Would the Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) London be talking about the London hub business plan? Perhaps Tessa Jowell would be discussing the funding arrangements for the Cultural Olympiad? So it was a great disappointment to find that the museum had opted instead to feature professional comedians.
With nine acts performing 20-minute sets at different locations around the museum over two hours, the night was a logistical marvel. And you have to hand it to the MoL: inviting a bunch of leery students to verbally desecrate your museum, have a good laugh and leave empty beer bottles strewn over the display cabinets is a bold new direction in outreach.
But the fact that the proceedings were set in a museum was largely incidental. Few people seemed that interested in the exhibits, and some, like the couple snogging in front of the entrance to the Black Death exhibition, were utterly oblivious to their surroundings. The beautifully displayed signage, describing how infected fleas living in the fur of rats carried the disease around the city, seemed completely lost on them.
That's not to say that the setting made no impact at all. Andy Zaltzman, one of the comics who was performing in AD1534, just round the corner from the Great Fire, pointed to Hol-bein's portrait of Henry VIII and told us, using only a four-letter word, what he thought of him.
Other comics also managed to cleverly work historically accurate references to the exhibits into their routines. We Are Klang, a three-man troupe performing in 450000BC, took the wooden bowls and spoons from a diorama depicting a Neanderthal dwelling and put the bowls on their heads before hitting themselves with the spoons.
This Neanderthal setting was an appropriate adjunct to the vast quantities of facial hair that adorned performers and audience. If there is an overlapping mid-point of the Venn diagram where comedy and museums overlap it must be here: I've never seen so many goatees, sideburns, moustaches and beards. It was as though, temporarily, the MoL had been declared a Taliban state, albeit quite a jolly one with music, laughter and beer.
The beer was sold from a makeshift bar at reception that did rather better business than the museum shop. Despite the latter remaining optimistically open all night, no one seemed to want to buy fudge, or books about the history of the London Underground. Still, at least the punters now know how to get to the museum if they ever want to make a return visit.
With nine acts performing 20-minute sets at different locations around the museum over two hours, the night was a logistical marvel. And you have to hand it to the MoL: inviting a bunch of leery students to verbally desecrate your museum, have a good laugh and leave empty beer bottles strewn over the display cabinets is a bold new direction in outreach.
But the fact that the proceedings were set in a museum was largely incidental. Few people seemed that interested in the exhibits, and some, like the couple snogging in front of the entrance to the Black Death exhibition, were utterly oblivious to their surroundings. The beautifully displayed signage, describing how infected fleas living in the fur of rats carried the disease around the city, seemed completely lost on them.
That's not to say that the setting made no impact at all. Andy Zaltzman, one of the comics who was performing in AD1534, just round the corner from the Great Fire, pointed to Hol-bein's portrait of Henry VIII and told us, using only a four-letter word, what he thought of him.
Other comics also managed to cleverly work historically accurate references to the exhibits into their routines. We Are Klang, a three-man troupe performing in 450000BC, took the wooden bowls and spoons from a diorama depicting a Neanderthal dwelling and put the bowls on their heads before hitting themselves with the spoons.
This Neanderthal setting was an appropriate adjunct to the vast quantities of facial hair that adorned performers and audience. If there is an overlapping mid-point of the Venn diagram where comedy and museums overlap it must be here: I've never seen so many goatees, sideburns, moustaches and beards. It was as though, temporarily, the MoL had been declared a Taliban state, albeit quite a jolly one with music, laughter and beer.
The beer was sold from a makeshift bar at reception that did rather better business than the museum shop. Despite the latter remaining optimistically open all night, no one seemed to want to buy fudge, or books about the history of the London Underground. Still, at least the punters now know how to get to the museum if they ever want to make a return visit.
