Comedy

Back in 1999, Alex Petty was involved with running a weekly comedy night at the Black Horse in Richmond. Kevin McCarron (pictured) was a regular on the bill. ‘Kevin has always been a prolific writer,’ Petty declares. ‘He’d do a new routine every week. At that time he wasn’t a particularly good compere. But he could talk for hours and keep the audience in a good mood. When our resident compere left, Kevin took his place.’ Feature continues

Petty had no ambitions to become a performer. But two other comedians had worked with him on the club. One was Rob Lee. ‘Rob got married, gave up comedy and moved to Brighton.’ The other was Fenton McCoot. ‘Fenton was a barber before he became a comic. He gave it up because handling scissors got dangerous when he had the shakes. Fenton was responsible for booking the acts. Then one night he vanished. ‘Literally. He didn’t turn up. Suddenly he wasn’t there.’ McCarron and Petty were left in charge. ‘That was in 2000,’ they explain. ‘We’ve not heard from him since.’

At that point their only ambition was to run this regular weekly club. ‘We’d called it the Laughing Horse because the venue was called the Black Horse and it also sounds like “laughing hoarse”. Yes, it’s an excruciating pun. As unfunny then as it is now.’ But the partnership blossomed. Their influence increased. ‘There’s never been a masterplan,’ McCarron and Petty claim. ‘It seems to grow organically. Managers at other venues come to our shows, like what they see and approach us. It’s taken on a life of its own.’

The Laughing Horse empire now consists of seven London clubs, ranging from Kingston to Camden and Wimbledon to Oxford Circus, as well as regular nights all over the country: ‘They’re in exotic places like Wakefield and Guildford.’ They take shows to the south of France and Monaco. McCarron does a short tour in Spain each September. They run a nationwide Laughing Horse New Act of the Year competition with a prize fund of £2,500 and the guarantee for the winner of paid work in Laughing Horse clubs.

Since 2004, they’ve also worked their magic at the Edinburgh Fringe by setting up a ‘Free Fringe’ at venues where performers aren’t required to pay for using the space and punters are asked to make a voluntary donation after the show. Last year this enterprise encompassed 69 shows and over 1,000 performances.

This year they’ll be back with more and a rebranded ‘Free Festival’: ‘Hopefully we’ve changed things for the better and other promoters and performers will realise they don’t have to spend thousands of pounds in pursuit of that Edinburgh dream.’