A PUB has been reduced to rubble after its landlord decided to host an Oxbridge improv group instead of showing England’s World Cup game.
Tom Logan, landlord of The Lion’s Head pub in Gloucester, decided it would be ‘original and interesting’ to put on a performance by Oxbridge comedy troupe A Room for Norman, who describe their show Troutface? as ‘wildly anarchic meta-satire, informed by our time at a French clowning academy’, instead of the football.
The hour-long performance by three tall skinny posh boys includes a 20-minute sketch where the group tickle each other with rubber snakes while shouting in Latin.
Surveying the smouldering ruins of his pub, Logan said: “Being a fairly rough sort of pub, we quite often have fights after the football, so I thought perhaps some semi-improvised surrealist comedy would create a more thoughtful, intimate atmosphere.”
Pub regular Wayne Hayes said: “I remember those tall kids walking on stage, making a joke about not being the football, and then somebody threw a wheelbarrow.
“Everyone started punching each other, or just punching the walls or furniture or themselves. There was a massive crash as someone drove a Transit van through the wall, and an Alsatian was running round with a pool cue in its mouth.”
Tom Logan added: “Overall it was not successful but if we can get the pub rebuilt in time for the next England game we’ll probably try showing Pretty Woman instead.”
