The Vault in St Peter Port was full with potential voters looking to laugh, as candidates and a Lord agreed to do stand up just a week before the island heads to the polls.
Six candidates were brave enough to take on the challenge set by The Impeachable Comedy Jam, having already spent their early evening meeting voters at an informal Meet the Candidates event.
Lord Digby Jones joined the election hopefuls on the stage along with local amateur stand up, and venture capitalist, Marc Cohen who introduced the acts on the night.
As well as comedy, there was art and music with singer songwriter Sophie Duncan headlining.
“It’s normally called the Improbably Comedy Jam. For one night only it’s been renamed the Impeachable Comedy Jam….and thats a nod to next week’s election,” said Mr Cohen.
Lord Jones was among the first up. He told Express it was very different to other public speaking events where the aim wasn’t to make people laugh.
“I’ve never used notes in my life, but I do do a lot of speaking. So I’ve never stood up to think I’m going to make these people laugh. I’ve always stood up to say I’ve got two or three things I want to get across. But the way to get them to listen is to talk to them like you talk to them in the pub,” said Lord Jones.
He’s given speeches at the Kremlin, The White House, in trade summits in Asia, and said politics could come across as arrogant, and doing stand up was the best way candidates can “prick the bottom of the arrogance”.
His set was in the first half of the night. He shared anecdotes about his interactions with audiences and even touched on politics by giving an impression of Sir Winston Churchill. He added how brave the candidates were to be getting involved, and asked the audience to be kind and also to vote.
The night saw sitting Deputies Lindsay de Sausmarez and Sasha Kazantseva-Miller both take to the stage.
There was audience interaction for Deputy Kazantseva-Miller while Deputy de Sausmarez shared her experiences in the form of spoken word to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody. Both women received applause and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
In between acts the two sitting deputies also shared how they’d agreed to perform on the night.
“I actually reached out to Marc asking for a quote of testimonials for my campaign, he said, ‘no, I’m not doing one, unless you please come and do stand up’…so here I am,” said Deputy Kazantseva-Miller.
Deputy de Sausmarez said she had got candidate Sarah Hansmann Rouxel to agree to playtouch rugby that totally “put her out of her comfort zone”, on the condition that she in turn got involved in the comedy night.
Candidates John Gollop and Steve Falla also perfomed with organiser of the event, Sarah Hansmann Rouxel.
None seemed to talk about policies but more made light of their experiences of being sitting or former deputies, with Deputy Falla putting his thoughts into song.
Not all candidates actually spoke.
Ross Le Brun decided to show his artistic skills and did a live caricature drawing of Marc Cohen on stage in between the other acts.
Ms Hansmann Rouxel who runs the local Improbable Comedy Jam and is often on set with the headliner of the night Sohie Duncan, told Express her motivation for organising the night.
“I run a regular improv, well, a comedy open mic night and the whole idea started by developing local talent. Two of the regulars are quite young, and were both saying how embarrassed they were their age group had the lowest amount of people that had signed up for the election to vote.
“And I thought, well, you know, we usually have quite a younger crowd here, why not just run an open mic and make it open to any candidate that’s, you know, willing to do it…it’s really just about being human in front of an audience and showing a different side to yourself, to reach the youngsters.”
The comedy night is a regular fixture on the islands comedy circuit, and organisers both said “they were delighted with the turn out.”