What crazy fool would do a show on their own birthday? You can’t see BA doing that, especially if it was hosted by Howlin’ Mad Murdoch on a 747. [1]

But Next Level generally takes place on the last Wednesday of the month, which is when my birthday landed. And so it was I spent my festive morning doing comedy admin, booking a last-minute replacement for a last-minute replacement.

We had three acts drop out for a variety of reasons, as if our night was a cursed pirate ship and I was its ghost captain. But we got some brilliant last-minute bookings, and by 8pm we had a full room ready to be steered across the dangerous seas of alternative comedy.

Arrrr.

I was hosting this one, and tried a new approach: actually writing some jokes. I stole Paul Creasy’s suggestion that our guest lineup was similar to the Sugababes circa 2009 – no existing members remaining, but still banging out the hits – and added a topper about Next Level being more like the Beach Boys [2] : several touring versions of us have existed, and we all hate each other.

I then got onto the important material, which was about it being Avril Lavinge [3]’s birthday, and how she was replaced by a body double called Melissa in 2003, but has gone on to enjoy a long and fruitful career, and how, to me, this is the true spirit of punk rock.

Crowd warmed up, or at least not entirely unhappy, I introduced our first act, the Chinese comedian Blank Peng, who wanted me to make it VERY CLEAR that she is a stand-up, not a sketch comedian. This I did.

Usually we go on first, but Blank wasn’t sure if she had to head off to another gig or not, so she opened, and in truth I really enjoyed having someone other than us open.

It still meant that me and my fellow Next Level Sketches got to enjoy the interval and the second half without worrying about our lines, but that a cool comedian got to reassure the audience that we do occasionally put on stuff that is kind of normal-ish, which (one would hope) relaxes people and allows them to be more open to the madness to come.

I’d never seen Peng perform before but had heard loads of good things about her on the circuit, and she didn’t disappoint, taking various (and often racist) stereotypes about Chinese people held by Westerners and wrapping them up in her own brilliant web of surreal escalations and pattern-breaking punchlines.

She’s definitely one to watch – she’ll be on telly soon, I’m sure of it.

Post-Peng, I returned to the stage in my role of host, and attemped to get a guy in the front role to make an English noise. I knew the guy – it was Nathan – and he didn’t disappoint, making a terrible effort which got a great laugh. Fortunately Paul, next to him, actually understood what noise I was looking for, made it, and we were away with good cheer for our second act – NEXT LEVEL SKETCH.

Oh, that’s us!

The cast were all amazing, this was definitely one of our best shows ever. Of the sketches that went down especially well, I would say Dan’s one about The Bins, my slightly strange sauna one, and Ben’s Village Festival perhaps got the best audience responses, along with The Fan of Fans one and Larry the Chimp. A special word to Jamie, too, for being brilliantly funny on his cast debut.

But the performances throughout were exceptional – and I feel like we got a really good variety of sketches in, from solo turns like Greg’s MB Games, short sketches like Rebecca’s The Dentist and John Dredge’s Party Sketch, and longer, weirder sketches that really let us test our mettle, like the aforementioned Village Festival.

The things we need to work on are the same as always: be better practiced with the material, which is improving, and reduce the time between sketches, which is not.

If we can nail our transitions – and it is not beyond the realms of possibility to believe we can do so – then I think we’re dangerously close to being a force to be reckoned with. Certainly the feedback from the other acts, who all had nice and thoughtful things to say, was really encouraging. That, along with the hosting working well, made me feel like less of an imposter than usual.

For the second half of the show, we sent in the clowns.

First up was the lovely Mikey Bligh Smith, who had performed with us once before as one half of The Lovely Boys.

He was just as lovely on his own. All his bits – brilliant, stupid physical comedy, impossible to describe without sounding trite – worked well, and the audience participation was particularly well judged, hilarious and kind.

The bit where he was sharing his cloud costume with two volunteers from the audience, one of them slightly too short to reach the head hole… people on my table could barely breathe from laughter.

Our final act of the night was another last minute booking, made on the recommendation of Mikey. I knew absolutely nothing about her, other than she was American and was, implausibly, called Lil Wenker.

I bigged up her American heritage before she came on stage, and this turned out to be the right decision: she walked up and through the audience, dressed as a cowboy, hugging an enormous American flag.

As with Mikey, a lot of Wenker’s comedy would be ruined if I wrote it all down with a straight face. But my god was she wonderful: incredible crowd work, superb clowning, and a series of perfectly timed sound effects, expertly marshalled by our tech, Dian Cathal, who is a brilliant comic in his own right.

I especially enjoyed the audience participation, particularly the rooster noises.

The show thus concluded, I encouraged everyone to head downstairs for merriment, but Dian had a surprise for me – and suddenly the whole cast were on stage singing me happy birthday. Damn you, Dian. And also, thank you.

[1] Cutting-edge cultural reference

[2] Cutting-edge cultural reference

[3] Cutting-edge cultural reference