Sara Barron with Bromley Buzz co-hosts Zeenat Noorani and Darren Weale
Edinburgh and the USA came to The Three Hounds Beer Cafe & Bottle Shop in Beckenham on THAT very hot day, Tuesday 19th July during the Bromley Arts Festival, in the shape of comedian Sara Barron, an American now living in London, and on her way to Scotland soon for the Edinburgh Fringe. She came to the small, friendly Three Hounds Beer Cafe – where you can bring your own food – to run her act past an intimate audience in the 25-or so capacity basement venue. Sara had been there twice before, as she told us when we interviewed her briefly for the Bromley Buzz podcast, here.
It’s great that top entertainers come to smaller venues locally in Bromley – we’ll add the Bridge House Theatre in Penge and Bromley Little Theatre to that short local list – and Sara gave our podcast co-hosts Zeenat Noorani and Darren Weale a memorable evening.
The behaviour of Sara’s husband during child-making efforts (in these stories, a study in remote working…) was a theme, and a funny one. Biology and behaviour were frequent sources of humour and Sara sometimes stepped into dangerous comedic territory – miscarriage? – but comedy should be about the full human experience and she has an endearing way of checking back with the audience if she felt there was a risk of actual offence on those occasions when she engaged people directly.
Sara’s delivery was snappy, physical (she paced and gesticulated surprisingly successfully in the small space), and her Edinburgh warm-up warmed her up only too well in those sticky conditions. Not surprisingly, Sara reflected on contrasts between British and American customs and people, which put a new spin on our special relationship. It was a really punchy hour or so of comedy, the very best of it more in the first half, as it did feel that the story arc that ran across the later part of the set was rough around the edges. Hardly surprising when some of it had only been penned that morning. Lucky us for getting comedy literally hot off the press.
Sara will be different and her act better-honed (with Bromley’s help) for those upcoming Edinburgh audiences.
Watch out, Edinburgh, Sara Barron and her at times gynaecological humour are coming north. We would like to see her in Bromley again and we will be seeing more of the other excellent talents appearing regularly at the Three Hounds.
Bromley Buzz 