The Meccano Club: The Business of Alternative Comedy

This chapter presents a case study of a typical London alternative cabaret in the 1980s, the Meccano Club, drawing on interviews and business records from the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive at the University of Kent, UK. It starts with a detailed account of the Meccano, explaining how it started, grew and was eventually sold as a going concern, the particular audience it attracted and the nature of the physical spaces in which the shows were run. It then challenges the narrative of alternative comedy as a Thatcherite, business-oriented movement by examining the ethos of those who ran the Meccano (Mark Bobinski, James Macabre and Lucinda Denning, and later Monika Bobinska), using handwritten records to show how this DIY enterprise took an idealistic approach to promoting female performers and sharing the profits.