The case for going out on a Tuesday

Saturday is for people who don't live in London. I'm sorry. I've been working the comedy circuit in this city for nine years, I have done shifts at almost every venue in zone 1 and 2, and the night that consistently delivers — the night that has the best bills, the cheapest tickets, the best chance of seeing a Netflix-special-headliner doing a £5 work-in-progress — is Tuesday. It's not even close. Tuesday is the smartest night to go out in London and the entire city is going out on Saturday instead.

This is not a complicated thesis but I want to die on this hill so I'm going to write 900 words about it.

What's actually on a Tuesday

Soho Theatre runs work-in-progress comedy at the Downstairs space on Tuesdays for £5-12. This is where comedians take their next hour to a properly seated 100-person room before they do it at Edinburgh in August. You will see Aisling Bea, Jordan Gray, Catherine Cohen, Rose Matafeo, James Acaster — all of them, regularly, at one-tenth the price of their tour shows. Booking is fine, you can usually walk up at 7pm.

Bethnal Green Working Men's Club does Knock2Bag and similar nights on Tuesdays. £8-12. Always solid. The room is sweaty and the bar is cash-only and that's exactly the point.

The Phoenix in Cavendish Square does new material Tuesdays. £5. It's the room where comedians try the bits that aren't ready yet, which means half of it bombs and half of it is incredible. The half that's incredible is what becomes the next Netflix special.

Above the Stag, Top Secret Comedy at Leicester Square, the Invisible Dot pop-ups when they're on, the Camden Comedy Club — Tuesday lineups across all of them. The midweek programming in this city is the actual craft. The Saturday lineup is the polished stuff that already worked on Tuesday.

The comedy bit is the metaphor

I'm using comedy because it's the bit I know. The same is true across the board.

Music venues do midweek showcases. The Lexington has its £5 Tuesdays. Servant Jazz Quarters runs up-and-coming jazz on Tuesdays cheaper and better than any Friday booking. The Vortex, the Pizza Express Jazz Club, half the Old Street pubs, all running Tuesday nights with programming nobody's heard of and prices nobody can complain about.

Restaurants. Hispi (in Manchester admittedly, but the principle holds) does half-price Mondays. London equivalents: Quality Chop House workers menu midweek, Rita's £12 burger lunch midweek, the Royal Court £12 Mondays for theatre. The deals are the deals because nobody's competing for the table on a Tuesday.

Pubs. Try walking into the Cock Tavern, the Royal Oak, the Pineapple, the Mayflower at 8pm on a Saturday. You can't. Try walking in at 8pm on a Tuesday. Empty seats by the fire. £5 pints. You can hear the conversation.

Why the city does it wrong

Two reasons.

First, the British workweek. People are knackered after Monday and write Tuesday off. They're saving themselves for Friday. By Friday they're too knackered for Friday, so they save themselves for Saturday. By Saturday they're fully cooked and they go out anyway and have a mediocre time at a place with a 45-minute queue. The whole city is on a five-day fatigue cycle that makes Saturday the most crowded and most expensive night for the worst version of every venue.

Second, alcohol. Saturday night is the night you go out to drink heavily. Tuesday night is the night you go out to actually do the thing — see the show, hear the band, eat the food. If you don't need to be hammered to enjoy a night out, Tuesday is mathematically better. If you do, that's a separate conversation.

The Tuesday rules

A few things I've learned doing this for years.

You can be in bed by 11.30 and still see two acts. Comedy doors at 7, first show 7.30, off stage by 9.30. Pint round the corner. Home for 11. Wednesday morning is fine. This is not the same as Saturday where you're home at 3am and ruined for two days.

Walk-in availability. The Saturday version of the same gig requires a booking three weeks ago. The Tuesday version, you walk up. This is true of comedy, music, almost every restaurant on this list, the lot.

Cheaper drinks. Most venues do their happy-hour and food deals on Tuesdays specifically because Tuesdays are slow. Tuesday at the Lexington is £4 a pint. Saturday it's £6.50.

Better people. I am going to take heat for this. The crowd at a Tuesday gig is people who came out specifically for that gig. The crowd at a Saturday gig is people who came out to be out. The first crowd is paying attention. The second is on their phone. As a performer, the first is way better. As an audience member, the same.

The catch

You have to know what's on. Tuesdays don't market themselves, they have small ad budgets, they're relying on comedy/music nerds to find them. The mainstream what's-on press skews to the weekend listings because that's where the press releases are. The sites that bother to cover midweek programming — Time Out used to, sort of, Rifio's London this-week page does it pretty well now, the comedy circuit has its own ecosystem of word-of-mouth — those are the sources you want.

For comedy specifically, I'd send anyone to Rifio's comedy listings for tonight, because the search picks up the £5 work-in-progress stuff that doesn't make it onto Time Out. For everything else: pick three venues you like, follow them on Instagram, the Tuesday programming is on their grid.

In conclusion

Saturday is overrated, expensive, busy, and the thing you're going to is at peak crowd and peak price. Tuesday is the night the city actually does its best work, with the cheapest tickets and the smallest queues, and almost nobody is taking advantage. It's the second-most-obvious arbitrage in London social life after "go out for lunch instead of dinner" and the entire city is sleeping on it. Literally.

I am, as I write this, going to Soho Theatre Downstairs at 7.30. £8 ticket. Walking up to it. Two pints with a mate after. Home by 11. Tuesday is the move.