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When Nick Page saw the exhaustion of the new mothers arriving at his comedy gig, he suggested turning the hour-long set into a sleepover. He had been joking – but the women enthusiastically agreed.
In any other room, a comedian asking the audience to fall asleep would have been career ruining. In the world of baby-friendly comedy clubs, however, it was a masterstroke.
“We all just had a little nap together,” Page said. Afterwards, the four comics on the bill scribbled jokes on scraps of paper and handed them out “so the mums could memorise them and pretend to their friends they had actually been to a comedy set”.
The ruse wasn’t the only success; Page later found the mums had taken it to the next level, posting five-star reviews online, declaring it the best show they had ever been to.
Across the UK, baby-friendly comedy clubs are springing up, offering daytime shows where parents can bring their infants without fear of judgment or eviction. They run on a simple premise: comedy in daylight hours. Feeding encouraged. The occasional meltdown guaranteed and babies free to stage small revolutions.
The clubs are sellout successes. But for performers, it can be a disorientating experience. Bristol’s Aftermirth gigs are regularly sold out but the comedians frequently come off stage uncertain of their success.
“I have to explain to performers that new mothers aren’t raucous because they’ve just had nine months of obesity, three days of pain, no sleep for months – and probably still have stitches in their perineum,” said founder Angie Belcher. “I comfort them that the mums are probably smiling on the inside though.”
Frankie B founded Milk Club Comedy in Bingley when her baby was just a month old. Her first four shows sold out and she had to move to a bigger venue.
Despite the club’s success, she said, performers could find the room hard to read: “New mothers can be harder to gauge than your usual audience because they’re bringing complex baggage with them.”
The mother-and-baby club Screaming With Laughter was started by comedians with young babies who refused to give up performing. Hatty Ashdown took it over when her own baby was six months old. She too has watched headline acts come unstuck.
“It’s interesting to see big comics failing to capture the attention of distracted mothers,” she said. “New parents aren’t looking for clever, enigmatic jokes with long pauses. To get them, you’ve got to be totally funny bones and high energy.”
Harriet Beveridge said she loves performing at mum-and-baby gigs. For her, the experience strips comedy back to its essence. “You have to give up the arrogance and egocentric nature of being a comedian, where you want all the attention all the time because you absolutely are going to be upstaged,” she said.
“I had a joke that always went down brilliantly about a baby snack that looked like a Tampax. I was doing it one gig when a toddler rushed on stage, grabbed the snack out of my hand and ate it. And there you are: best joke. Upstaged by a toddler.”
But she relishes such unpredictability. “I have a Rolodex of jokes for every occasion but it’s stretched to the limit when there’s a poo explosion in the front row,” she said. “How do you bring a parent with you who’s dealing with that?”
Angela Garwood, co-host of London’s Every Other Mother, doesn’t even mind when babies pelt her with Lego. “The chaos is completely welcome,” she said. “How boring if all the children sat there perfectly.”
For Julie Jepson, the gigs are the highlight of her schedule. “Last time, a little girl wandered into my spotlight, took my microphone and licked it like an ice-cream. She stole the show but I forgave her because she was so sweet.”
Sally McIlhone left a senior corporate job to co-found Every Other Mother after having a baby. “The comedians who go down best are those who’ve come out of the other side of the baby trench,” she said. “They can give new mothers hope that their toddler will stop melting down. On the other hand, they’ll then become teenagers who give you lip.”
For Page, however, the gigs aren’t so different from others he has done. “These are gigs where people will cry, scream, probably won’t care you’re there, might shit themselves and will probably get a tit out,” he said. “It’s like doing a gig in Portsmouth in the old days.”
