Los Quattros Cvnts

I was in a great mood yesterday. I had change in my pocket and even though I was rushing from Wandsworth to the West End in order to get to the Phoenix by 7.30, I had time to stop and give a pound to a smiling homeless guy with a dog. I don't give money often enough to nice smiling homeless people so this made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The evening would end slightly differently

I got to the venue in record time and met up with @RobOxley and @Tainted_Harmony and her two friends. The queue for the basement was rather large and slow-moving but we got there in the end and nabbed our special reserved table (after Muki hassled the poor guy who was sitting at it). Anyway we were soon joined by @misswiz and @kateweb and the show began...

The Cvnts are a sketch troupe made up from Michael Legge of Precious Little and Dan Mersh, Jeremy Limb and Paul Litchfield of The Trap and they perform together on the first Wednesday of the month at The Phoenix (home of the still to be blogged about London Comedy Improv). Guests they have had previously include Andrew Collins, Jason Manford, Robin Ince and Jeremy Lion, and this week saw the mighty Richard Herring close the show.

The Cvnts threw in a number of great sketches this time including Michael and Jeremy unsure whether the "animal sketch" was one about animal porn or animal vets, Paul's cornish homoerotica (eroticker) and Dan trying to get Doctor Pub to give advice to viewers problems (though I did miss Doctor Party - please bring him back.)

The handover to Herring included a great sketch where various rather posh lords were meeting and chatting about their more famous wives, including Lord Gaga, Lord Sovereign, and *ahem* Lord Boy! Naturally Herring had to trump them all and arrived as King Latifah!

I've seen Richard Herring a number of times, downloaded the podcasts, read the blogs, bought the book,  bought the DVDs, and, yes, bought the T-shirt so I'm quite familiar with hs work, but he always, but always makes me laugh. I think it's a combination of his stage personality which can range from insecure ("I just want to be back on the telly") to full on ranting in the blink of an eye. Even @Tainted_Harmony's grumpy friend cracked a smile (so I'm told!). I particularly loved how he could still shock and surprise this audience of mainly liberal comedy regulars with his routine about having small hands, the size of a 7 year old girl's, and to the dark fantasies where this led.

After the show I spent some time with Rob and Vicky outside with Paul Litchfield (who very rarely appears to switch off) before we headed inside for a lovely time chatting with Michael and James and the ever-lovely Ewen Macintosh who had managed to survive a potentially awkward situation where he had to buy 'The Office' DVDs in a shop. I'm not sure if he felt the need to excuse himself to the shop assistant and come up with some excuse for buying his own DVD, but I like to imagine he did. By the way, it wasn't for him - it was a present for someone and he could only get Ricky Gervais to sign it that day.

I got the bus home, but rather predictably fell asleep and woke up in Seven Sisters. The wait for the bus took ages but Twitter managed to entertain me. I was grumpy though. Especially when a Scottish man gestured at me when i had my earphones on. I assumed he wanted a light so I fumbled in my pockets for my lighter. He still looked like he wanted more so I unplugged myself and it turned out he wanted a whole roll-up ! How rude. Well I was happy to give it to him and I guess he worked out that I was also from Scotland. "Where are you from?" he said. Now the only reason Scottish people ask me that is to see if they know the town I grew up in and regale me with stories of their home town. I wasn't interested. "Angel", I said, simultaneously putting my headphones back on. He looked disappointed. I was getting grumpier.

Then another man appeared to be staring at my face, slightly too closely, obviously saying things. I unplugged myself again and he was saying "Give me a couple of quid.". Not asking me nicely, but almost ordering me to. I didn't know if he was a polite mugger or a fucking rude beggar. He clearly wasn't homeless, so I told him I didn't have anything to spare. Which was true. Yes I had loads of change. But I wasn't going to spare any to this dick. We were at an impasse.

"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Give me a couple of quid."
"No."
"Fucking tight stingy bastard!"

He walked off and although my meeting with this guy was vastly different to the lovely homeless man I had met earlier I was glad I didn't give him my money. It made me warm and fuzzy inside.

The Cvnts are taking a break for the summer but will be back at The Phoenix in September.