This is the story of what happens when a clown walks out on stage for the first time in over 3 months (thank you coronavirus) and finds himself at a gig where the audience is made up exclusively of extras from ‘Herbie Rides Again‘.

But before we get to that let’s back up a little and talk about how we arrived at this rather unusual situation – this is part one of a two-part review, the second half features headliner Daniel Sloss – and it all began with a global pandemic…

As the planet is aware we have been in lock-down for quite a while and literally every event that you can think of has been cancelled. It should go without saying that when there are over half a million people who have died because of this, complaining about a lack of live entertainment does seem like a first-world problem. Regardless, when one of my regular comedy pals offered me tickets to a live gig I was certainly intrigued.

I had never heard of the Drive-In club, but I could guess what it was they did. The bonus for me was that we wouldn’t just be watching a pre-recorded show – the clowns would be live on a stage and we would be in an actual audience that could react and perhaps experience some of that stand-up show atmosphere that I have been craving to Renton-like levels.

As we drove round the North Circular to the fairly industrial concrete venue in the wind and rain I began to realise that this ‘Drive-In’ experience might be a little different to the 1950s American movie version that I had been imagining. We pulled up to our spot for the evening and then began tuning our radio to the on-screen channel. This wasn’t quite as easy with internet radio as we first thought. Let’s just say that I now know that the frequency used is the exact same one as a Guadalupe chat show and a Latin dance station from LA!

The rules for the Drive-In Club are simple. Don’t honk your horn and don’t flash your lights whilst performers are on stage. Some try-hard even came up with the ‘cute’ idea of swishing your windscreen wipers as a show of appreciation or applause… and that was the case until Kai Humpries hit the stage, quite rightly decided that all sounded a bit shite and swiftly saved the evening.

Kai walked out to a sea of headlights and bumpers and started his set. The intro was strong but how could he tell? The reaction was silence – in the cars we were laughing but that’s no good to him. So, like any accomplished clown, he started to work the crowd. He made jokes about how he couldn’t work the crowd (“alright mate, nice airbag… what’s her name?“) and people started to honk. He encouraged this and instantly dropped to a barrage of car puns – “we’ve got a bumper show for you tonight” – which gave the audience time to both laugh and begin to honk in appreciation.

The silliness was exactly what was needed on this very unusual evening. It had a similar feel to Peter Kay’s ‘joke-aoke’ where he tells basic well-known gags and lets the audience shout the punchline. It was by no means perfect, but now the clown on stage had something to feed off and we the audience had a way to show appreciation. It took us a while to remember to honk as we laughed but by the time Daniel Sloss hit the stage we could actually complete simple tunes as one.

Kai broke this crowd and deserves full credit for doing so. He then returned to a strong and well-trodden set that included a fantastic tale of him as a child with an accompanying photo that I doubt he ever thought he’d want displayed on a 40ft screen.

This was a really fun way to start this evening, his set flew by and I really hope that I have the opportunity to catch this clown again in the future, but in a room, with people… and alcohol.

Kai had more than done his job and it was now time to hand over to Daniel Sloss.

Clown Stars: (-unrated-)

@ Drive-In Club (Brent Cross), London