There’s three things I miss about places like London and San Francisco: hummus, smoothies and stand-up comedy. While you can make the first two in the comfort of your kitchen you can’t really use your food processor to make people laugh. (Unless you’re a really bad cook.) Luckily there’s Jan Uuspõld with his shows and a couple of months ago Comedy Estonia popped up but this is far from enough. As I’m spending a bit more time in Tallinn these days it only made sense to add my little contribution. And so I’m very happy to present the first night of Komeediklubi, to take place on Wednesday November 24th in Von Krahl theatre. Komeediklubi badly translates to ‘Comet club’, just so you know.

When I’ve invited people along to stand-up shows in London I’ve sometimes been nervous whether others will enjoy the gig. I tend not to see the same acts over and over again and there is a bit of hit and miss when going to see new names. I have the same nervousness multiplied by ten because I’m inviting so many more people this time but at least the lineup is pretty awesome.

I saw John Gordillo back in February and almost immediately contacted him to ask whether he’d theoretically be interested in a gig in Estonia. The fact he agreed shows what a great sense of humour he has. John’s material is a bit more intellectual if not philosophical compared to the stand-up average (if such a thing exists) and at the same time he manages to be funny as hell. He’s killed it at the Fringe, worked with Eddie Izard, he has a Wikipedia page and whatnot but at the end of the day what matters is that he can make you think and laugh at the same time. Also, John insisted on arriving early so he could acclimatise and write some jokes about the place.

Erich McElroy is an American turned Brit that I saw MC’ing in the Comedy Cafe a couple of months back and I thought to myself: this guy is much funnier than the acts. He’s likeable and his style of comedy is almost well-wishing, yet sharp. Erich manages to take the best of both American and British stand-up and blend them into a positive stream of humour which I think will go down well in Tallinn.

And last but not least there’s Brett Goldstein who probably has the most ‘classic’ style of the trio. His bio illustrates this well: originally an actor, he turned to stand up because he was bored of depressing people through plays. “If I could depress them through the medium of laughter…” he thought, “that would be something…”. Brett’s first question after we had agreed on gig details was whether things like swearing and sex were off limits in Estonia. I might have created a monster but I replied It would be rude not to swear and not to talk about sex

So there you go, it should be a fun night. If enough people will turn up and the event will turn a profit, this will be donated to the Tallinn animal shelter. They helped to find a new home for Snoopy the german shepherd last summer and this is my way to say thank you to them.

If you decide to come, I warmly recommend to book ahead, tickets for Komeediklubi are available through Ticketpro.