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Laurence is not saying he's depressed, but Leonard Cohen has all his records - boom boom! John reveals he's out of counselling and just glad to be alive. But Tim dries up half-way, after making a clumsy "comedy pass" at a young girl in the front row.Andrea is the biggest surprise, coming out as a lesbian "I didn't know she was gay," smiles Ivor afterwards. You'll see when they do their five-minute spots at the arts centre tonight."Sure enough, the small gathering of 50, mostly performers' family and friends, guffaws at every confession and chuckles at every epiphany. "I was in the gutter, gospel truth." A star is born; he's suffered for his comedy, now it's his audience's turn.It may be cathartic, but is it funny? At the end of the course, Ivor chants the course mantra: Who Am I? Why Am I Here? What Can I Tell You? "You've got to be conscious of who you are and what you're doing with your life." But why should this make people laugh? "I don't know, but it does.
Tim, the last to bear witness, ambles forward and mumbles: "I can't believe I'm going to tell you this." Ivor tells him to speak up. "Look, he's holding on to his fags and won't look at a few middle-class wimps." As resident compere at Hampstead Comedy Club, Ivor knows what he's talking about.There's not a dry eye in the art gallery after Tim his finished telling us about the collapse of his business, the break-up of his family and the descent into alcoholism. But Andrea's story about serving divorce papers on her husband 15 minutes after he discovered his leukaemia produces a long, uneasy silence, eventually broken by Ivor pronouncing: "There's a joke in there somewhere."Never mind the new rock 'n' roll; comedy is the new Alcoholics Anonymous. "Good stuff." When Laurence opens up his heart about his "shitty life", the group whoops and hollers. Next."Rob, a student, confesses to lying to his parents and being shiftless "Better," says Ivor.
