The Sister Venue That Got the Better Postcode
Berwick Street is one of the great Soho streets a narrow corridor of market stalls, independent record shops, fabric traders, and the sort of cafes that have been serving the same full English breakfast to the same regulars since before anyone alive can remember. It is a street with a genuine Soho identity, untouched by the chain restaurant uniformity that has colonised so much of central London, and it is the street on which the Soho Comedy Factory chose to open its second location.
Berwick Street as Comedy Real Estate
Berwick Street runs between Oxford Street and Broadwick Street, cutting through the heart of Soho in a direction that takes you past the fabric market, the record shops that DJs made famous in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the handful of independent bars and restaurants that have survived the rent pressures that have claimed so many of Soho’s most interesting businesses. It is a less obvious comedy location than, say, the Comedy Store’s position near Piccadilly Circus or the Top Secret’s Covent Garden basement, and this is precisely what makes it interesting.
The Soho Comedy Factory’s Berwick Street venue operates with the 4.7-star rating that its sibling has also achieved, and while it has fewer reviews (65 compared to the original’s 959), this is entirely explained by the relative newness of the venue rather than any difference in quality. The same programming approach, the same emphasis on professional circuit acts, the same commitment to making comedy the focus of the evening rather than the pretext for a bar operation.
A Different Character
The Berwick Street location has a slightly different character from the original Soho Comedy Factory. The street itself is more neighbourhood-facing than tourist-facing Berwick Street draws market workers, locals, and the kind of regular Soho visitor who knows the area well enough to know what is behind the market stalls and what hours the cafes keep. The comedy audience here tends to be slightly more Soho-native than the mainstream West End crowd, which gives the shows a different energy more familiar with comedy as a form, more likely to know who the acts are, more likely to be there because they follow the circuit rather than because they are having a night out.
The Verdict
The Soho Comedy Factory Berwick Street is a strong comedy venue in one of London’s most characterful streets, offering the same quality of programming as its sibling in a room with a slightly more local, more Soho-native atmosphere. The 4.7-star rating across its first 65 reviews suggests it is building a reputation as carefully as its parent venue did, and there is every reason to think the eventual review volume will reflect the same quality that has made the Soho Comedy Factory brand one of the more reliable in the West End.
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
