If you are hoping for a tranquil evening where you can lounge back in your fold-away chair, enjoy the gentle chink of ice cube on glass as you sip your favourite tipple and chuckle away at a few jokes from the safety of an unlit auditorium, this event is 100%, absolutely, not for you. It feels only fair to warn you, you do not want to be the one stuck at the back of the room, clearly petrified by the idea of participation but too polite to leave.
In fact, Wonder & Joy isn’t strictly comedy either. It is a totally participatory event involving meeting a lot of people very quickly, games, dancing, singing and chanting: it is summer camp for adults. Just like camp, its success relies on enthusiastic, energetic leaders, and these are supplied in the form of Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans. He is the Mentos to her Cola; together they explode with energy, fizzing around the room, (metaphorically) splattering everyone in reach until the whole crowd is jumping around, screaming and beaming like the Cheshire Cat.
It is a wonderful little pick up to combat Royal Mile, crowd-wading induced fatigue. You will leave feeling happier, energized, more connected to your fellow audience members and abounding with the milk of human kindness; that is, unless you are the poor lady who hated participation, she was probably crying into her handbag by the end. You have been warned.
