I found myself in a place called Vingåker last night. It’s not the biggest place in Sweden, but it’s got a comedy night whose reputation is growing bigger and bigger. Playing in a small town can go either way and you never quite know what to expect, so I had done a bit of research about the town before the gig. When I say research, naturally, I mean I typed the name of the town into Wikipedia. This is what I learnt: That Vingåker is the birth place of ex-Prime Minister Göran Persson and that that the town has a train station that was closed between 1971 and 2003. Those two facts were all that was of great enough importance to make it on to Wikipedia.
I arrived in good time and found the venue ‘Vingåker Hotell’ which can be found, serendipitously, opposite the famous station. I assume that business at the hotel has picked up since the trains started running again and Göran Persson lost power. I took a little wander round town to see if I could get a handle on what kind of town it was. Prominent were the offices of Miljöpartiet (Greens), Vänsterpartiet (Communist) and Social Democraterna (Social Democrats)… with the governing Alliansen parties nowhere to be seen. There were hairdressers, pizza/kebab ‘restaurants’ and the ubiquitous COOP and ICA. In other words, a typical Swedish town. I thought I was blending in when suddenly, on the high street, a very drunk middle aged woman approached me, grabbed me by the waist, breathed 60% proof and smoke into my face and rasped “You’re not from here, are you?”. I’m still not sure if I should have felt scared or warmly welcomed.
The line up for the gig was slightly odd. The headliner was Kristoffer Appelquist. However, he was using the night to try out his show KRIG (war) which premieres next week at Boulevard Teatern in Stockholm. He decided to perform it in the first half and then the other three (me, Sara Andersson and Sven Brundin) would perform after the break. The bottom line is that a Saturday night audience in small town Sweden is not the crowd for a thoughtful show about the nature of war and about a quarter of the audience found it hard to keep up. That said, I can say that the show will be a real success when it’s performed at the theatre to a dedicated audience. It’s a show that is intelligent, personal and very funny.
When it was our turn to perform, the audience were up for some laughs that didn’t involve profound thought and I think the three of us gave them what they wanted. I had a ball onstage and the audience were great. I stayed the night and other than having a chance to chat to Kristoffer and Henrik who runs the night, it was also great to watch legless Vingåkerians letting rip on a Saturday night.
The final word is to recommend the hotel, run by a witty, charming Bosnian family. So if ever you’re in Vingåker look up the Hotel. It’s opposite the station.
