Private view ... Lucy Porter previewed her Edinburgh show at the Hen and Chickens, London. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod
Lucy Porter wants me to smell her fingers. I know she's single, but it's not how I imagined our first meeting would be. Not that I am adverse to being blindfolded and led through a mildly sexual act: it's just that I'm sitting in the third row and there are only two of us in the audience.
This is Highbury's Hen and Chickens theatre pub, where Porter and her colleague Des Clarke are doing an Edinburgh preview show. Forming half an audience by yourself is bizarre - and comes with some responsibilities. If you don't laugh, the auditorium stands silent, you can't sit at the back, and when the spectre of audience participation raises its head there's nowhere to hide. Leaving embarrassing blindfold moments aside, a show with such small numbers in the crowd makes for a unique entertainment.
"Lets' be honest - the chances of you winning are quite good tonight," quips Clarke as the competition round comes along, while a little later Porter scurries behind a curtain to inform the crew that she is "just popping down to buy the audience a drink" before returning with a round of cider.
Fast forward one week, and upstairs at the Arts Theatre American comic Lewis Schaffer is scribbling some rough notes down after his performance of America is the Greatest Country in the World to those at the bar who have stayed behind to share their thoughts. He hadn't had the best of nights. He'd got the fear, some said. The jokes were good but his confidence had drained, as the new material was recited live for the first time. Comedy timing doesn't come naturally, even to professionals.
Comedy has always relied on banter between the act and the audience but here, in previews, the barriers are swept aside, the writing process is laid bare and scripts litter the stage as an act visibly changes in front of your eyes.
There's a lot of it about. Jimmy Carr played the Hen and Chickens just a few days after our visit and fringe preview shows pack the listings pages, while last month Brighton was a hotbed of acts looking to try out new sketches. This week alone Reginald D Hunter and Richard Herring headline the Cavendish Arms, a small pub in Stockwell, while Dan Antopolski, Josie Long, Andy Zaltzman, Ed Byrne, Shazia Mirza and Frankie Boyle, among others, have all taken to the stage in recent weeks to run through new material.
In fact, the multitude of comedians performing in London makes you question why you would need to head to the Scottish capital at all. For southerners with a little patience, some uniquely intimate comedy nights are up for grabs, in smaller venues and for a fraction of the train fare.
