Five Stars, Two Hundred and Nineteen Witnesses, and a Perfect Average to Defend
The Soho Comedy House has done something that the laws of statistical probability suggest should not be possible: it has maintained a 5.0-star average across 219 reviews. Not 4.9. Not 4.8. Five point zero, out of five, from two hundred and nineteen separate individuals who had two hundred and nineteen separate evenings in Soho and emerged from every single one of them sufficiently satisfied to award the maximum possible rating. This is either the finest comedy venue in London, the most enthusiastically reviewed venue in London, or both simultaneously, and on the evidence of the consistency, the most likely explanation is simply that it is very, very good.
The Weight of a Perfect Rating
In the context of Soho’s comedy scene, where 4.9 is achievable by the best venues and 4.7 is respectable, a 5.0 across 219 reviews is an outlier. It requires not just consistently good shows but consistently exceptional experiences the kind of evenings that make people reach for their phones on the way home and think, yes, this deserves the maximum rating. That response is not automatic. People award maximum ratings when they have been genuinely surprised by quality, when the evening exceeded their expectations, when they feel compelled to tell others that this exists and is as good as they are about to discover.
The Soho Comedy House appears to be generating this response reliably. Whether this is a function of the booking quality, the room configuration, the atmosphere, the compère calibre, or some combination of all four, the result is a venue that is performing at a level that none of its Soho competitors can currently match on a per-review basis.
What to Expect
The Soho Comedy House is a dedicated comedy venue in Soho, operating in the standard circuit format with professional acts and experienced compères. The room is sized for intimacy a characteristic that most of the 5.0-rated comedy venues in London share, suggesting that scale and perfect ratings are in inverse proportion and the programming draws from the top end of the working circuit.
The name Soho Comedy House suggests a venue that takes itself seriously enough to call itself a house rather than a club or a cellar or a factory, and the rating suggests this seriousness is justified. A comedy house is a place where comedy lives, rather than a place where it visits on certain evenings. Whether the Soho Comedy House has earned that distinction by the standards of the great comedy institutions the Comedy Store, the Angel Comedy Club, the Top Secret is a question that more reviews will answer over time.
The Verdict
With 219 reviews at 5.0 stars, the Soho Comedy House is among the highest-rated comedy venues in London by average. Go and find out what a perfect Soho comedy experience looks like. The two hundred and nineteen people who went before you have collectively awarded the maximum possible score, and that is a recommendation that carries more weight than any single critic’s opinion.
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
