PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Comedy Cavern, Baroque, Bath (Sun 12 Feb)

And so it came to pass that the Comedy Cavern – Bath’s longest-running comedy club – relocated from its cosy subterranean cave in the Moles Porter Cellar Bar to a glitzier, more glamorous nest at Baroque nightclub, itself formerly known as Back to Mine. And that, dear reader, is very good news. Bath needs the Comedy Cavern: it’s a downhome, authentic, friendly venture far removed form the increasingly bland, corporate, personality-free zone that another Bath venue purportedly known for comedy nights tries to foist on us in the name of A Good Night Out.

While Baroque is indeed glitzier and more glamorous than the Porter Cellar Bar could ever claim to be, there’s clearly a very independent essence at the heart of the matter. We may be pointed in the direction of yet another underground adventure, but here the similarity ends. LED lighting (with a strong emphasis on pink neon), plushly upholstered banquettes and the odd (slightly incongruous) chandelier offer a 1980s-style boudoir vibe to proceedings which, although probably better suited to the hip, young, shot-shooting, late-night dancing crowd than the Heritage City’s cultured comedy cognoscenti, is infused with a loveable eccentricity – if only they’d sort the seating out. By 8pm on the new-look Comedy Cavern’s opening night, seats were hard to find – let alone seats with a view of the tiny stage. We eventually settled on a plush bench against a wall that made any chance of a glimpse of opening act Isy Suttie (familiar to many of us as Dobby from ‘Peep Show’) do her gently wacky, slightly surreal thing. All credit to Isy, then, for having the ability to grasp the attention (and the imagination) of the whole room, including punters who would no doubt have gone home later having no clue what she looked like.

A couple of up-and-coming newbies later, and headline act Milton Jones (pictured) made a rather uncomfortable stand-at-the-back viewpoint bearable (yes, we gave up on the wallflower location). In his live act, the Radio 4 stalwart who makes ‘Mock the Week’ worth watching is loopy, idiosyncratic and – even when his more Dali-esque gags don’t quite nudge the funny bone – captivating in the way that only a quick-thinking, creative linguistic can be.

Welcome back, the Comedy Cavern: you have been sorely missed. (Melissa Blease)

THE COMEDY CAVERN IS AT BAROQUE EVERY SUNDAY EVENING: 7 BLADUD BUILDINGS, BATH, BA1 5LS WEB: WWW.BAROQUENIGHTCLUB.COM/COMEDY-CAVERN/