How we got started:
Our first venue was in the Africa Centre (A semi derelict community centre formally in the heart of Covent Garden). I was renting a basement storage space, on behalf of the Street Performers of Covent Garden, where we kept all of our props; unicycles, tight ropes, juggling, escape and acrobatic equipment. Weirdly, the building was almost empty. After running a tiny open mic night at the Queens Head in Denman Street, with a capacity of around 25 people I decided that a disused restaurant down the corridor from our storage space could make a great little comedy club.
After a 6 month campaign of badgering emails, the ‘trusties’ of the Africa Centre (who in the end could not be trusted and sold the building!) kindly allowed me to rent a small part of the building and I set up a weekly stand up comedy night each Friday. We bought bottled beers, spirits and soft drinks from Tesco’s at the end of King Street, and used the Africa Centre license to set up our own little bar in the space. Our flyers announced comedy and all drinks at £1.50! We funnelled as many people as we could in from the streets with the flyers and from my street show on the West Piazza juggling chainsaws every Friday Night. The Top Secret Comedy Club was born! We had no website!
It went so well (despite my appalling but stubborn weekly attempts at hosting) that I immediately started pestering the trustees with more emails to open more days. 6 months later I was allowed to extended to Fridays and Saturdays. 6 months more of pleading emails and I was allowed to rent the space from Wed-Saturday and then after another protracted negotiation (coincidently 6 months!) I was allowed to rent on a monthly basis and open every night! A year and half since our first night and we had ourselves a full time stand up comedy club!
Two years later, (Three and a half years into our life… just when Top Secret Comedy Club was a vulnerable toddler) the Africa Centre trusties announced that we had to close with 2 weeks notice, that they had sold the building… wow!!
Luckily I found someone who was in as desperate a situation as I was; with his new restaurant and almost completely un-used basement, we saved his ass and he saved ours, the patron Saint of Top Secret; Mohamed of Cafe Mode. On the strength of a handshake and a bit of paper that my mate Gary (who had a law degree from Oxford, but who had never practiced) drew up, we paid Mo a chuck of money and a monthly sum and made his empty basement our new home!
Two and a half years later we bought the lease from Mohamed for all the money we ever made. (yea!? he screwed us!! but thats ok!) We had our own club in our own building!! hurray!!
So we had two comedy venues; a smaller venue on the ground floor seating 145 and a banging basement space for big shows with a 220 capacity. We used both venues when we sold out, which we seem to more and more these days. Its the same show in the two rooms, with Comics running up and down the stairs between sets!
In July 2023 a property agent showed me a disused gym in Kingsway (5 mins walk from our Drury Lane venue) it was a huge open plan room on the lower ground floor with great toilets and changing rooms, and it was such an incredibly exciting prospect that I immediately had to run and use those beautiful toilets! As quickly as we found the room it was taken, by another interested party. 3 months of regret and sadness ensued.
One day I took a call to inform me that the interested party had backed out and that the property was once more available!! More agonising, waits for surveyors and building consultants and reports and permissions and builders, as our busy winter season disappeared from view, until finally in April 2024 we opened our 3rd room at 23 Kingsway with a capacity of 330! The room was and is incredible, so much so that every time I visited the room up until when it was ready, another visit had to be made to those fancy toilets!
Where we are now.
We are supported by the very best stand up comedians in the U.K. with regular big name drop ins who like to use our venues to work on new material for tours or sets for TV. Dangerously inexpensive bar too! We have the highest rating of any comedy club in the U.K. on Trip Advisor and on Google Reviews, please take a look at what the 100’s of people who have visited our place and experienced the shows have to say on TripAdvisor or Google+.
Because we are renowned for the best young and vibrant crowds on the stand up comedy venue scene: AMY SCHUMER, ANDI OSHO, ANDY PARSONS, AISLING BEA, AZIZ ANSARI, BRIDGET CHRISTIE, DALISO CHAPONDA, DARA O BRIAIN, DAVE CHAPPELLE, CHRIS ROCK, DYLAN MORAN, EDDIE IZZARD, ELLIE TAYLOR, HOLLY WALSH, JACK WHITEHALL, JASON MANFORD, JEFF GARLIN, JEFF ROSS, JOHN BISHOP, JAMALI MADDIX, JOEL DOMMETT, JUDAH FREELANDER, KATHERINE RYAN, KERRY GODLIMAN, KEVIN BRIDGES, LEE NELSON, LOUIS CK, LOUISA OMIELAN, MICKY FLANAGAN, MICHAEL MCINTYRE, PAUL CHOWDHRY, REGINALD D HUNTER, RICH HALL, ROB BECKETT, ROMESH RANGANATHAN, ROSS NOBLE, RUSSELL HOWARD, SARA PASCOE, SEANN WALSH, SIMON AMSTELL, STEPHEN MERCHANT, TOM ALLEN, TREVOR NOAH have all come down and jumped on stage to work out new jokes and practice sets before they go on tours or TV gigs etc.
Top Secret Comedy Club has the best Stand up Comedians in the world and the U.K. “popping in” to try out new stuff all the time. Which means you get to see the hottest comedians in the intimate setting of a live Stand up Comedy Club.
Top Secret Comedy Club is rated as the best comedy club in the country on Trip Advisor and Google reviews so you know you will be well looked after and treated to an awesome night of the best stand up comedy this side of the atlantic.
With all of this it’s easy to see why we are no longer a Top Secret Comedy Club.
