We stayed for a couple of days with a medical student in Providence, Rhode Island where the main bit of excitement (even more exciting than hearing me singing the Eagles song The Last Resort loudly and incompletely as I couldn’t remember any more of it than – “She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island, where the something, something, something, something in the air” and something about packing “her hopes and dreams like a refugee something, something father something across the sea”) – yes, even more exciting than me repeating that over and over again was that we went to a Comedy Club.

It was staging a qualifying round of a national competition to find a new comic talent. The two winners from that night’s heat would win a trip to Vegas to compete in the next stage. There were 9 comedians lined up. We got there early. We were hungry and they did sort of bar food there so we went in to eat. They put us at a table for two slap bang in front of the stage.

Basically, the front row – – was us. Ordinarily, I would have moved because it didn’t take a genius to figure that it was extremely likely that we would become involved in some of the stand up and we were a little worried it might not go well and would be awkward for them knowing there were two vicars sitting smack in front. But the thing that kept us there was that this trip was about new experiences and well, what was the worst that could happen?

What was the worst that could happen in a grungy flea-pit comedy club in a beat-up part of a rundown town where there were only two items on the menu; a menu which was a testament to the art of de-cluttering and keeping things simple. There were only two words on it. One was “Ribs”. No indication where the ribs had once lodged. Just, Ribs. And the other was “Burger”. “Do you want ribs or burger?” asked the barman when I enquired about food. I was just about to ask what the low fat gluten free super-food vegetarian option was tonight when I realised I would never say that.

We had burger.

The compere got up to get things rolling. He was large, round and very, very bitter. Like a 6 foot aspirin.

He clearly resented being there. He’d been in the business for 20 years he said (several times) and yet there he was, nowhere else. He couldn’t think why he hadn’t made it. We could have given him some ideas but he was too bitter and angry to risk telling. I think he had decided long ago to take his anger out on his audience.

Maybe 20 years experience had taught him that people weren’t going to laugh if he tried to tell jokes, that they weren’t going to laugh if he engaged them in wry observational humour or situational comedy and, basically, with him they just weren’t going to even snigger. I think he assumed we would only laugh if we were afraid he would hurt us if we didn’t.

Shall we engage the audience? Nah, let’s not look for engagement, let’s go for an acrimonious divorce.

And two middle aged vicars were sitting immediately in front of him. We were close enough to actually hear his mind unhinging. We nibbled nervously on our burgers and hoped that if we had our mouths full he wouldn’t ask us to speak.

To kick things off he spent a few minutes picking on the drunken stag party lurking around several tables near the back, asking them questions, ignoring the answers and begging to be heckled. He then moved on to make fun of the guy at the bar who couldn’t help coming from Wisconsin. Warming up, his eyes then ranged around the room: he looked straight at me: leaned back slightly and, as I stuffed an entire burger bun in my mouth we were saved. Saved, it must be said, by an unlikely source.

A gay suicide bomber.

He spotted a suicide bomber sitting at one of the tables in the third row. A suicide bomber sitting on his own. A suicide bomber, therefore, with no support. Nor, it must be said, with any form of explosive device. We only know that he was a suicide bomber because the compere told us he had to be because he was Arabic. Repeatedly told us. And then we learned that he must be gay because he was sitting on his own and so obviously had no girlfriend. The compere’s brain didn’t necessarily follow logical pathways. Having someone whom he could call a gay suicide bomber in the club seemed to be the answer to all the compere’s wildest dreams and so he spent a few minutes of what he probably considered “jolly banter” but what sounded more like the recipe of a hate crime until he eventually tired of that and, as contentedly as a cat that’s just left an unpleasant present in your slipper, introduced the first comedian.

In one respect he was a great warm-up for the contestants. After that opening it was easy for them to look better.

But gee willikers it was stereotype central. The old Jewish guy only did jokes about being an old Jewish guy, the gay guy solely did jokes about being a gay guy, the menopausal woman exclusively did jokes about being a menopausal woman, the massively overweight guy limited himself to singularly doing jokes about being massively overweight. And so on. And on. Each of the 9 hopefuls were drawn with a broad brush deeply dipped in a big pot of cliché.

The language was often stronger than the jokes, but hats off to them, 9 very brave individuals; and it was brilliant fun. A small sweaty club full of vocal locals. Some material to laugh at, some to groan at and you could even download an app to vote for your favourites as it went along.

And then, once they’d all had their 5 minutes of fame the compere got back up to change the tone. With the judges off compiling the votes and deciding on the two winners Missed-a-Personality returned to fill in.

By now the stag party were pretty far gone and he wasn’t getting any coherent response from them. The suicide bomber, fair play to him, had stayed and this defiance brought with it less “comic” potential. The Wisconsin lad had moved from being sat at the bar to being slumped over it, which meant new blood was needed.

The compere breathed in and smelt the sweetest aroma a bully’s nostrils can snort on. The smell of fear. He looked down with veloceraptor eye.

“Soooooo, where are you guys from?”

We no longer had burger to protect us.

“England.”

At least, I’m pretty sure that I said England but from his response what I think I must actually have said was “I bet you can’t scream at me for 5 minutes.”

Impressively he didn’t seem to draw breath during the whole tirade. When he did pause, having finished off with a rapid and increasingly rabid version of “I’m Henery the Eighth I am” he leaned close and said “And what do you English *&^$$$! ++$$^&* do in England?”

“Urrr, well, we’re both priests, actually.”

“Ohhhhh ****!”

The audience seemed to think this was the funniest thing that had happened in their entire lives.

And you never know, maybe this would be the cue for him to enter into some clever witty banter with us.

Or maybe we’d just thrown a meaty bone to a doberman. He launched. Verbally. Though most of the verbs were variations of fairly intimate activities. He had a very loud voice. He also had a microphone. This was only going to be very one way traffic. I got the impression that even the stag party were feeling a little uncomfortable with it all and the suicide bomber had stopped entering codes into his phone. Eventually one of the judges came onto the stage to stop him and produced an envelope within which was the name of the two winners. The neurotic new dad who had told jokes about being a neurotic new dad and the massively overweight guy had made it through. We all clapped.

People started leaving. The menopausal comedienne came up to us and said hi and thanked us for coming. Then the compere came up and wanted to know why on earth we had come to something we knew would be offensive and where we clearly would never be welcome.

We told him perfectly truthfully that we hadn’t been offended by any of the 9 comedians. Admittedly, we probably wouldn’t be able to use much of what they’d said in a typical Sunday sermon but this was a comedy club and we wanted to experience it and so why should a priest not be there? You choose whether or not to take offence at something and there was nothing in what they had said that would cause us to do so.

The only thing we did find offensive about the evening was him – and that was only because his brand of humour was bullying and vicious. The others were just trying to get people to laugh: I think he was just trying to get people.

He said that the audience expected that sort of humour from him.

He’s been doing it for 20 years so I guess they do expect it.

But it doesn’t mean they can’t hope for something more.