Boffoonery

On Tuesday night we went to see an evening of comedy in aid of Bletchley Park called Bofoonery.
We arrived at the Bloomsbury Theatre and were immediately accosted by a man selling raffle tickets. The first prize was a ZX Spectrun that had been signed by Sir Clive Sinclair. As he sold us the tickets he said to me "I think you'll be more interested in 2nd prize" (a first class trip on Eurostar). Now I'm not saying the audience was completely made up of geeks - but there were a lot of slogan t-shirts around - and I was in my work attire - but I did think it was rather presuming of him to assume I would rather go to France or Belgium that win such an iconic piece of computer history. Anyway the tickets cost £10 and we didn't win!
So in t the theatre we went (after 2 glasses of wine) and the fun started.
The evening's loose theme was code breaking (for obvious reasons) and it kicked off with Simon Singh giving a short talk about codes and showing us an actual enigma machine - which met with gasps from the audience. It was a complex piece of machinery and now that I "fully understand" it the achievement of breaking the code seems even more amazing.
Next there were various stand up routines and sketches performed by some of my favourite comedians.
I was super happy to see Punt and Dennis together on stage. I wanted to go and see them in about 1992 (OK maybe a little later than that but when they were at the height of Mary Whitehouse Experience and "milky milky" was the catchphrase of the day) but couldn't get tickets. I do listen to them on the "Now Show" when I remember about it but other than that I haven't seen them at the same time for years.
Also I was pleasantly surprised by Robin Ince and Dave Gorman - neither of whom I have seen doing stand up before. Also involved were Robert Llewellyn, Johnny Ball and Maggie Philbin who took part in a quiz with Richard Herring and Robin Ince. It was so weird to see Johnny Ball and Maggie Philbin on stage right in front of me - they were on the telly throughout my childhood and my interest in science has got to have been down to "think of a number" or "tomorrow's world" at least in some small way.
Richard Herring was the last stand up to perform and he was excellent as usual. I think I laughed too loud - kept getting funny looks - but by that time I'd had 3 wines so was past caring.
It really was a lovely evening and I hope that I can see all these performers again soon and that Bletchely Park raised as much if not more cash than it expected.