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October 2025

I had done my usual pre-trip research to determine if there were any shows I needed to target. Other than a Caitlin Peluffo and Friends fandango at Union Hall, there was nothing unmissable, so I intended to just revisit a cross section of favourites and try to hit some new places. You be the judge of how well I achieved that.

Sunday is a decent night for bar shows but NYC was in the midst of a storm so ease of logistics was a factor in choosing a location. The Beauty Bar is about 100 yds from the subway and I've had some success at their Secret Sauce night so that was where I kicked things off. Some mild stupidity on my part resulted in a late arrival but fortunately things were just getting going. The host was decent and the overall standard far from appalling. Kelly Bachman, the only woman on the bill, was the one name I was able to catch.

Monday night often consists of a single pint at The Stand's Frantic show, followed by an hour or so at Whiplash at nearby UCB. Whiplash had been replaced by a ticketed show that didn't particularly appeal and the only name of interest at Frantic was host Aaron Berg who, if past experience was anything to go by, wouldn't actually be there. A while back I had been to an odd little show called Paperweight in a building on the far side of McCarren Park and decided that it might be worth a punt for this particular Monday. Off I set on the L line to Williamsburg and then executed a confident stride across the park. Pushing the door open it seemed quite quiet, even for a place hosting the sort of comedy I go to. I stuck my head round the corner to observe that there was definitely no show happening. The bartender confirmed as much, even going out of his way to come round from behind the bar and point to a poster showing what was scheduled to be on. Paperweight definitely wasn't listed. Eventbrite had lied to me! Super - fail number one. As I hurriedly retraced my steps to the Bedford L stop I decided that Frantic would have to be my fallback.

I arrived just after 9 to find manager Joe Harary was seating and as he'd already given away all my preferred door-adjacent spaces, he made an extravagant gesture to a central seat in the back row.

In a break from the norm, Aaron actually WAS there and set about challenging the quite quiet crowd. He made the mistake of chatting to a fairly dull Scottish couple in the front row which didn't set the room alight. Sienna Hubert-Ross was up first and Geo Perez, Elle Orlando and Bassam Shawl all put in appearances. No one stood out particularly, apart from maybe Bassam.

The following night we tried to go to a show imaginatively titled "Tuesday Night Comedy" at 30 Love, a tennis bar if you can conceive of such a thing. Although the tickets suggested that the show started at 6pm, the text within the show's blurb explicitly stated "Every Other Tuesday. Doors at 7pm, Show at 8PM". We turned up to find a dismally quiet bar where startled staff informed us that the happy hour consisted of Bud Light and Aperol Spritz and that the comedy was already over. Super duper - that's fail number two.

Girlfriend, who had only come along as she was intrigued by the idea of a tennis bar, decided to head back and I set off for my fallback option, another new punt called Big Wave Comedy Show in a cool East Village bar called Ten Degrees. The small room was atmospheric enough but would struggle to hold more than 20. I think we peaked at about 12. We had a girl host, a tall bloke, one of the producers (Spencer Wright) and then three more blokes. It went fine, the tall bloke was good and the bar has an excellent happy hour. I went home reasonably contented.

On the Wednesday girlfriend had a matinee to go to (and not just ANY matinee but Bill and Ted doing Waiting for Godot) so I decided to call in on the 3pm open-mic at the nearby West Side Comedy Club. I got there about 3:15pm. Trevor Noah was playing at the Beacon Theatre across the road so there was plenty of bustling activity around the block. The side door to the venue stated that you should use it to enter if it was open and indeed it was. I descended the stairs, past framed head shots of assorted comics and came to the glass door into the venue. The door was locked and it was very apparent that nothing was happening inside. It was in almost complete darkness with the chairs stacked up on the tables. I went back outside and checked the venue's own website. As it was now past 3pm the show was no longer showing on the site. Even if it had been, how would that have helped? Fail number three! This really is tremendously inept work from the Scottish lad!

The following night I had planned to visit the Bushwick Comedy Club. The website claimed that there were 12 tickets left for the performance but before I got the chance to purchase one of them, the show mysteriously disappeared from the site's list! I didn't actually turn up at an empty venue so it doesn't fully justify the classification of a "fail". My backup was Landline Comedy at a brewery in Gowanus, Brooklyn called Wild East Brewing. It's quite an atmospheric performance space and the show went well. Host Andre Medrano was decent and I really enjoyed Kevin McCaffrey.  Kelly Bachman put in another appearance, again the only woman on the bill. Afterwards Kelly noticed my Monkey Barrel t-shirt and ruefully observed how she wished she'd "gone with them" when she appeared at the Fringe last year. I bought Andre a beer and we chatted about his upcoming trip to Barcelona.

On Friday we were spending the day in Astoria, Queens. There's a venue up there called QED that I had been meaning to call into for a while. A plan to visit it earlier in the trip for a proper show hadn't worked out but since we were in the area and they had an open-mic on at 6pm, we figured we could kill two birds with one stone. It turned out to be a nice enough space - a small bar/waiting area at the front and then the performance space at the back with the stage to the rear. Only seven comics turned up so including the host, the whole thing was wrapped up in about 40 minutes - they were getting four minutes, 10 seconds each. One woman, seven guys.

The following day was the only show we'd actually planned in advance to see. The last time we'd been in Union Hall was when we turned up without tickets to see something called The British are Coming - the clear highlight of which was James Acaster. This time it was Caitlin Peluffo with guests Jill Weiner, Alex Kumin, Ethan Simmons Patterson and Peter Revello. While Acaster's show had had a line of people an hour before show time, Caitlin's gig was a little quieter. I think we made it to about the 20 mark. We saw Chloe Radcliffe arrive which was odd as she wasn't listed. She was to replace Peter Revello which isn't exactly a fair swap but the tickets were very reasonably priced. Caitlin was doing a run through for a taping on the Tuesday night. She did very well, although was clearly a little nervous about the upcoming record. Ethan was probably the next best. We had the option of seeing Todd Barry at the West Side Comedy Club after but Saturday night is never the best time to consume comedy in NYC.

Monday night had, as always, the option of Frantic at The Stand. There was also a "headliners" show of interest at the Bushwick Comedy Club, the highlight of which was Nathan MacIntosh. At some point on the day itself Nathan was replaced by someone else, lessening the appeal of the lineup. We hadn't visited The Olive Tree on this trip so we decided that that would suffice for comedy. The first three weekdays can often be a chance to see bigger names at the Comedy Cellar/Olive Tree as they're not on the road. We arrived and got seated quite far from "the action" i.e. the comics table. Girlfriend suggested that it might be more illuminating to sit at the bar (right beside the table) so we relocated over there and ordered a bottle of red wine.

There were initially three comics at the table, the only one of which I recognised was Daniel Simonsen. After a bit of eavesdropping it became apparent that the comic immediately behind me was Aziz Ansari. He had written, directed and starred (along with Keanu) in a film that was premiering in New York that weekend so he might have been in town for that.

At some point all of the following were hanging out across three tables at the back of the restaurant: Jim Norton, Bobby Kelly, Dan Soder, Dan Naturman, Jon Laster, Alex Edelman and KC Shornima. There was quite a bit of talk about touring in Europe. The Bill Murray was spoken about fondly and Sean Walsh and Jamali Maddix seemed to be held in high regard. Michelle Wolf's living arrangements (based in Barcelona, gigging in Europe and popping back to NYC occasionally) were also spoken of enviously.

When I pretended to go to the bathroom (in order to catch a moment of a show) Alex Edelman was describing his parents. I might be doing him a disservice but I think this material has been round a while. He used to open with "I'm from a really racist part of Boston. Called Boston" for many many years.

As we left one of the staff was outside so I decided to ask her about the progress of the new room. "The McDonalds one?" she replied. Well OBVIOUSLY the McDonalds one, I thought but didn't say. How many new rooms are you building right now? She didn't know much about it, other than it was a single performance space, would have a mezzanine and might be ready in January.

Tuesday was our final night. Based on my positive reviews of the previous week's Big Wave Comedy at Ten Degrees girlfriend agreed to join me. The good happy hour might also have been a factor. It wasn't a wild success. Cody Marino opened and did as well as he was allowed to by a group of middle-aged women. There was a fairly decent bloke called John Brown who isn't doing himself any favours with that stage name. Co-producer Drew Beeker drove things pretty hard into the ground, ran the light by probably 5 minutes and used up any good will either of us had left. We legged it when his interminable set eventually ended, followed by two girls who looked genuinely traumatised by what had happened. I think we were four ninths of the audience, so a significant departure. As we finished our drinks by the bar, one of the girls reiterated how bad a time they had had. You get used to it love.

Trip Stats

Shows attended - 7

Shows failed to attend - 3

New venues - 2

Expenditure - $14