“How long before Ryanair starts charging for emotional baggage?” The question was asked by Ian Moore, one of the comics on the bill at Sway in Covent Garden on Thursday. Then he went on to muse on the conversations that would follow at security: “Did you pack this baggage yourself, sir?” “No, my family had quite a big hand in it.”
Moore’s shtick is that he’s an English mod who fell for a French woman and lives in a country where he depends on his small sons to do the translating. He tells a great gag about the aftermath of a crash in which he finds himself hanging upside down in the car. His first thought is not to thank God that the children aren’t with him; his first thought is that the approaching peasant with the helpful face is going to test his vocabulary to the limits by asking how it all happened.
I’d never heard of Ian Moore before, but I’m sure it won’t be long before I’m seeing his name everywhere. I found myself giggling long before he’d got to his punchlines.
Sway was good value, too: £8 a head for tickets booked online, then £16 for a decent bottle of white and a Mediterranean platter to share. Six out of 10. I’ve docked two points for their failure to wipe tables in the bar and for the way they try to bully new customers into sitting in the front row.