The Cheese and Pineapple Club

The Cheese and Pineapple Club

For the last three years, The Cheese and Pineapple Club (TCAPC) has been a beacon of alternative comedy lighting up an otherwise quiet corner of Stoke Newington.

The brainchild of Sarah Campbell and Grainne Maguire, TCAPC offers an intimate atmosphere with high-calibre guests such as Richard Herring and Chris Addison. Sarah and Grainne are both successful comics, and have played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where they first met four years ago and planned the birth of the club.

“We wanted a monthly comedy night where we could try out new material,” said Grainne, “the type of club that we would want to play.”

The pair searched all over London for a suitable venue before being settling on The Prince. Sarah suggested starting it in Stoke Newington: “It’s like a village and nobody leaves. It’s very hard to get in or out.”

“Hackney is such a community place that we wanted to make a community comedy club. When I thought the East London Line was going to be a proper tube, I used to glare at the workmen thinking, ‘Damn you! You’re ripping the soul out of Hackney!’ But no, it’s fine – you only get to go to New Cross every third Sunday or something.”

One drawback of the area, though, is the type of occupations residents are likely to have: “Mostly you ask people in the audience what they do for a living and they’re in admin, or they’re a teacher or an accountant and you can take the piss out of it. You can’t do that in our club because it’s always like ‘I make cellos’ or ‘I help children to walk’ and you end up going, ‘really well done. How did you get into that?’”

Despite being away from more traditional comedy centres, The Cheese and Pineapple Club attracts loyal followers such as Enthusiastic Dave and Sally-4, and has a good reputation amongst top comics: “Terry Saunders said, ‘this is how a comedy club should be.’ They feel they can try out new material, rather having to stick to their tried and tested routines.”

Autumn headliners include Stephen Carlin, Andrew O’Neill and Andy Zaltzman. Other projects for the pair include Grainne’s bonnet club and Sarah’s ‘Looking Ugly’ which, as part of BBC Three’s 15 Minutes of Funny season, means she will be on your TV every day throughout November if you can’t catch her in N16.

The Cheese and Pineapple Club is on the first Thursday of every month at

The Prince
Kynaston Road
N16

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