Big, Beautiful, Bespoke Belly Laughs for Business Away Days

So many company events are interchangeable, even ordinary. Swap the logo on the screen in the lobby, be it the pub quiz, the go-kart track, or the cocktail masterclass, and few would spot the difference between this fun occasion and too many others. We offer something completely different.

This is a custom-crafted comedy show that could not be experienced by a single other company on earth, because it is unique and special to you and your people. Once we know your tone, gentle and PG-rated, or a bolder more raw style, or something closer to an 18 certificate with real edge, we pepper the night with jokes built specifically about your people, your company, your industry, and quite possibly your least favourite competitor.

Here is the other option, if you want it. Add a skills workshop earlier in the day and the same event becomes a full Laugh & Learn day. Or skip that entirely and let the show stand on its own, exactly as most companies booking this for a Christmas do, an anniversary or a big all-hands celebration choose to do. Laugh is the show. Learn is the workshop. Book either alone, or put them together.

There is a fairly standard rotation. Crazy golf*. An escape room. Ten pin bowling. Laser tag. Paintballing, which I can personally confirm is often a rather more bruising experience than the brochure suggests, and I have the photographic evidence to prove it. Whether anyone wants to see it or not.

How about karaoke? After all, everyone loves to channel their inner Stevie Wonder/Adele/Frank Zappa (delete as applicable).

It sounds fun in the planning meeting and then, on the night, features a mildly tortuous performance by Steve from IT doing a full-commitment "Livin' on a Prayer" while everyone is forced to choose between nodding along, quietly wincing, or slow-panicking that it's their turn soon and choosing an Aretha track might not work out in practice.

None of these are bad. Some are genuinely good fun. Maybe once. With mixed appeal across a diverse group of colleagues. Axe throwing has its place. But is it the ideal activity for Deirdre from accounts with a bad back and a passive manner?

The trouble with all of the above is that none offer anything actually about your people, your business. Anyone could be doing it, anywhere, and quite a lot of them are, this Thursday, or next Tuesday, regardless of their professional expertise.

Stand-up comedy is one of the few forms of joyous entertainment that works on almost everybody. Nobody has to get up. Nobody has to perform, unless they genuinely want to, and if they do, we help them prepare properly (more on that below).

Broadly, you simply sit comfortably and laugh heartily alongside your colleagues. Shared laughter is an extra special bonding experience with a quality all it's own.

Heck, even if one act isn't quite to a given taste, the next one will be, and the headliner, well, they're the headliner for a reason. Because a full line-up gives everybody masses of laughs that land courtesy of tried-and-tested professional stand-up.

Now add the extraordinary one-time-only jokes about "that guy" in your sales team, the gag about the CEO and their infatuation with golf, or savvy takes on the shortcomings of your key competitor, and it only gets funnier from there.

Worth being precise here, because it gets misread. This is not a show made entirely of jokes about your finance director, the upcoming launch of your new logo, or how the Q3 figures were astonishing.

The bulk of the comedy is tried and tested stand-up that would land in any room. What makes it yours is what gets threaded through that set.

Before a word is written, we talk.

Is there a team or an individual who could take some good-natured ribbing, the head of sales, perhaps, or a director everyone has a soft spot for? Is there a competitor your whole company quietly enjoys hearing take a hit? A piece of industry software so despised it has become company folklore?

We do the research with you and write for your people specifically, ultimately performed for you by professional comedians who perform for quality stand-up for a living. I have MC'd well over a thousand live stand-up comedy shows. I know exactly how a room behaves, and how to build extraordinary shows that land.

This isn't a sit-down-and-watch-in-silence cinema-like experience. The evening is built with breaks in it, traditionally two across a three-act structure, though that flexes depending on what best suits, so there's proper time to mingle, catch up with people you don't normally sit near, and grab another drink, not just before and after the show but during it too.

The resultant gig exists exactly once, for you and your team, and will never be performed anywhere else again. Nobody goes home and describes the escape room in detail. They do, however, excitedly report to friends and family that their company had talented comedians doing material about their actual boss/the office gossip/CEO of their main competitor*.

*Delete as applicable

This one is worth a section of its own, because it tends to be the moment people remember longest.

Now and again, a company books this and one or two members of the team volunteer, or get gently volunteered by their colleagues, to do their own short stand-up set on the night, maybe three to five minutes, slotted in between the professional comedians. They lose their chuckle cherry on stage in front of friends and colleagues. Sometimes for charity.

If anyone on your team fancies it, they do not go up unprepared. I support them beforehand through Stepping Into Stand-Up Comedy, or with some proper one-to-one coaching if they want more direct attention, so they walk on stage with stronger gags and a good deal more confidence than most people performing their stand-up debut.

Watching a colleague bringing their best effort at funny, on a stage, for your entertainment, is a different kind of memorable to watching them attempt "Livin' on a Prayer."

The list is longer than most people assume.

• A new product launch
• A company anniversary
• Closing a deal that has dragged on for the best part of a year
• A new CEO arriving and wanting to mark it properly rather than with an all-staff email
• Two companies merging and needing a fun and genuine reason for both sides to actually talk to each other
• New owners wanting to thank the team they inherited
• A leadership team marking the end of a grinding hard year, or sharing the triumph of a genuinely good one
• Celebrating the achievements and character of a wonderful team member who is retiring
• Celebrating the departure of a painful, pedantic and joyless team member who is leaving the company  
• And, obviously, Christmas, for the businesses who want their end-of-year do to be something other than a hired room, a DJ, and not much else. Though with our added option of bringing in the DJ and filling the dance floor after the show, you can still have exactly that part too, just with a considerably better story attached to it

Budget shapes who is on stage. At the smaller end, you get sharp, genuinely funny working comics who do this every week for paying crowds.

Stretch further and it is entirely possible to bring in a recognisable television name. Either way, the material is crafted and delivered the same way. Unique, specific and hilarious.

Photography is worth planning in from the start rather than as an afterthought. We can provide a professional photographer who can capture the event properly, portraits, small team shots, and the full company photograph that people actually frame and enjoy looking at afterwards. There are examples already on the Away Days page and in this very article.

Ready to talk through what this could look like for your company?

Curious what a full Laugh & Learn day looks like from arrival to last orders? What If Your Next Team Away Day Actually Did Something? walks through one, beat by beat.

A solid starting point is a discovery call up front to answer questions and work out the budget, the tone, and learn enough about who, or what, might be a topic for bespoke jokes.

Explore the full Laugh & Learn Away Days page for pricing and formats.

Do we have to book the workshop as well as the show?
No. The show is a complete evening on its own. The workshop is there for teams who specifically want a skills element too, not a required part of the format.

Is the whole show just jokes about our company?
No. Most of the material is proven, professional-standard comedy. The bespoke element, jokes about your people, your competitors or your industry, are peppered throughout the entire show.

How edgy can the material actually be?
Whatever suits your culture. Tone is agreed in advance, from gentle and PG through to properly edgy and closer to 18 certificate, and we book the right mix of comedians to match, a PG night gets a different line up to a properly edgy one.

How far ahead should we book?
As much notice as you can give is always better, since London venues fill up through the year, particularly for December dates. There is no fixed cut-off, it depends on your group size and how flexible you can be on dates, but a couple of months at minimum is a sensible starting point.

Can we turn it into a full party with dancing afterwards?
Yes. A DJ and dance floor can follow the show, so the night can run from comedy straight into a proper party if that is what you want.

Can someone from our team actually get up and perform?
Yes, if anyone fancies it. One or two volunteers, or the gently-volunteered, can do a short set on the night between the professional comedians. They get support and preparation first, through the Stepping Into Stand-Up course and/or one-to-one coaching, so they go up with decent material and added confidence rather than purely winging it.