Seventeen Reviews, Five Stars, and Possibly the Best Discovery in Covent Garden
Maple Laughs Comedy has 17 reviews and a 5.0-star average. Seventeen. This is, in London comedy terms, a rounding error the review count that the Top Secret Comedy Club accumulates on a moderately busy Tuesday. And yet those 17 reviews tell a story that is worth paying attention to: every single person who went to Maple Laughs Comedy and left a review gave it the maximum possible rating. Not fifteen out of seventeen, which would be extraordinary. All seventeen. Five stars each. No exceptions.
The Mathematics of a Perfect Score
There are two explanations for a 5.0-star rating from 17 reviews. The first is that the 17 reviewers are all personally connected to the venue in some way friends of the owner, family of the performers, members of an organised campaign to inflate ratings before a venue establishes itself. This is not unheard of in the London hospitality and entertainment industry, and it would explain the unusual combination of low review volume and perfect score.
The second explanation is that Maple Laughs Comedy is genuinely excellent, and that the 17 people who went were 17 people who were sufficiently delighted by the experience that they found their phones, opened Google Maps, and awarded the maximum rating without exception. In a city as comedically sophisticated as London, where the audience has seen everything and is not easily impressed, this second explanation is actually more interesting than the first and worth testing personally.
Covent Garden’s Newest Comedy Entry
Maple Laughs Comedy is operating in one of London’s busiest comedy districts, surrounded by established venues with hundreds or thousands of reviews. Its challenge is to establish itself against this competition with nothing but a perfect early rating and the quality of its actual shows. This is the same challenge that every new comedy venue faces, and the ones that survive it tend to do so by focusing on exactly what Maple Laughs’ early reviews suggest it is doing: being very good at the fundamental job of putting excellent comedy in front of an audience.
Covent Garden is a forgiving environment for a new comedy venue in some respects the foot traffic, the entertainment-hungry crowds, the proximity to tourists and office workers and an unforgiving one in others. The competition is intense, the audience is experienced, and the standard required to stand out is high. Maple Laughs Comedy is starting from a perfect score, which is the best possible starting position.
The Verdict
Go to Maple Laughs Comedy. You might be review number 18, and you might be the person who brings the average down from 5.0 to 4.9, which would be unfortunate for the record but entirely reasonable in context. More likely, on the basis of what the 17 reviewers before you have collectively reported, you will be adding another maximum rating to a growing tally that suggests this new Covent Garden venue is something worth watching.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: editor@prat.uk
