Punchine Comedy Club supreme has created a booming cottage industry, writes Andy Gilbert

So there you are in the office of this Singapore Government guy whose job it is to either let you stage a comedy show or tell you to get lost. He’s the guy with the yes or no, the green or red – he’s grasped it or he hasn’t.

It’s looking good. Then he says: ”We’d need to see the scripts.” And you says: “But it’s improvisation comedy. There aren’t any.” And he looks at you, as if he isn’t a complete and utter idiot, and says: “Fine, but we still need the scripts.” And so you punch his lights out. Well, OK, you politely thank him and leave hoping he gets run over by a rhinoceros.

And at that point you might be forgiven for wishing that five years ago you hadn’t given up your job as a presenter for Star TV, or before that thrown away a promising career as an actor getting beaten up as an extra by that guy who played Bruce Lee in that film about Bruce Lee.

But thankful, that’s exactly what John Moorhead did. And by taking the chance to turn what was a monthly gathering of amateur comedians at the old Godown restaurant into the now well established Punchine Comedy Club, Moorhead (below) struck gold, or at least silver. Once a month, he brings leading professional comics from the British comedy circuit, particularly the famous comedy Store in London, to the Viceroy restaurant in Wan Chai.

He’s booked some top stand-up comics, such as Bill Bailey and Ed Byrne, and he’s introduced improvisation in the form of the Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Crew. They go down a treat with the mainly British expat audiences.

Occasionally, of course, they bomb – 35 year old Moorhead’s “worst fear”. “I get very nervous during the sets.“ he says.

Moorhead organises all this from a stone cottage in Somerset, which, apparently, is in England somewhere. “People think I live in Hong Kong, but I don’t, “he says. “It’s a big commute each month. I moved back about three yeas ago. That’s why Punchline is always ahead of people who try to copy the concept. You have to see the acts live. You can’t gauge it from video or TV. I’ve now made all the connections on the circuit.”

It has a rival, of course, the two-year-old Comedy Zone. “I don’t think there’s room fro two Punchline’s, but we don’t do the same thing. They mainly put on American comedians. He doesn’t seem threatened.

And so with the success of Punchline (it’s even listed in the Lonely Planer guide), Moorhead is going global, well, Southeast Asian anyway. He has a new sponsor: Virgin Atlantic, replacing British Airways, which, lets face it, doesn’t say “fun”. He has already put on shows in Bangkok and will shortly be taking Punchline to Shanghai, Beijing, Jakarta and, hopefully, Tokyo. And, of course, good old Singapore, Comedy in Singapore? Now that is a laugh. Still, could be worse. Could be Somerset.