Another plus for being a voice and speech coach, is when you’re a voice and speech coach to a comedian, especially when they’re funny.  So this was why the other Sunday, I found myself in Brixton wending my way through Coldharbour Lane towards the railway bridge and the Dogstar.   How the late Josephine Hart would have loved it – you enter the Dogstar downstairs and you’re on the set of a Kurt Weill musical, with the cast just drunk enough to be more sad than bad.  Upstairs, where the stand-ups perform it’s completely different.  About 130 of us sit and wait in anticipation for the first turn, who is the hyper-active Australian sounding South African maître de, Chris, who shouts and jives about a lot.   He gets funnier as the night progresses.   Suddenly we’re off and the first comedian’s on.

Peter Kienetz, Julie Kertesz, Alex Brown, Helen Hayes, Jimmy Mills, Gary Edwards, Pierre Lapoule were in the line up