Every other Wednesday. 8pm - 12pm. £8 (£6 members)

The Gatwick Manor is actually a haven of many services: a hotel, a pub (with fine food on offer) and convention halls for weddings, seminars, etc. It was in one of these last rooms that I found The Comedy Club – so imaginatively named because of its existence through The Comedy Club Ltd. The entire place has an air of rustic, country Englishness about it despite being five minutes from Gatwick Airport , the M23, and ‘the faster growing town in the South’. This theme continues inside the buildings.

It is an ‘unusual’ setting for a comedy night. I’m used to pub basements and attics, community halls and theatres. This place is like the court of King Arthur! High ceilings, mock-Tudor oak beams and white walls, burgundy curtains and furniture upholstery, wrought iron-like chandeliers and wall hung tapestries, and brass tankards dotted around the beams.

What? No stuffed animal heads or ornate suits of armour?

It is a big room with blocks of seating liberally spread in a semi circle around the makeshift stage. Every seat is aimed at the stage so you will watch the acts, and housed a table at the centre of each block. If you came in a party of more than two you would either get split up by the table or an aisle or have to sit at the back.

On the tables were a collection of leaflets with info on The Comedy Club Ltd., membership, a joke competition (which took take place during the interval) and a warning about no mobiles and no talking during the acts. Did that imply that heckling was frowned upon?

There is a small bar outside the auditorium that serves throughout the night and has a late license up till 12am. Their prices seemed reasonable but I was advised to grab my pre-show drinks from the pub across the way as they were a few pence cheaper and the acts would not start until 9pm at the earliest. The staff were all friendly and chatty.

I waited in the room to soak up the atmosphere and listen to the fine jazz and R‘n’B that was being piped in. This way I could also watch the rest of the audience as they entered. Tentatively. No-one showed signs of being a ‘regular’ and the chairs filled from the back forwards. Maybe they were all regulars and knew what was to come but there wasn’t any embarrassing victimisation (but that obviously depends on which acts are on). In fact the host had quite a bit of trouble getting any feedback from the crowd which I would put down to the lack of intimacy and openness of the room; it made everyone more self-conscious of how easy a target they could be.

Aside from the joke competition being prolonged padding the jesters did’st make such merriment that was’t enjoyed by all. Verily, much ale was quaffed and, indeed, the wenches delivered a suckling pig that was a sight to behold.

Sorry. No, there wasn’t a suckling pig.