Ivo was preparing to host the third charity fundraiser for Swindon’s Harbour Project when somebody pointed out on social media that there was one fairly major problem with the date.
Swindon Town were playing at home. The Robins kicked off against Crystal Palace Under-21s in the EFL Trophy at 7pm, just half an hour before Ivo was supposed to be on stage at the Wyvern.
The suggestion, made jokingly, was that no genuine Swindon supporter would have booked a comedy show at the same time as a Town match. For most comedians, that probably would have remained a throwaway comment on social media.
For Ivo, it became a challenge he accepted. At around 7.10pm, he left the theatre and ran to the County Ground alongside Longevity Games founder Tim Howe and Swindon24 sports reporter Ian Howard.
The trio bought tickets, went inside, watched around two minutes of the match and then ran back across town to the Wyvern just in time for Ivo to host the show.
The ridiculous pre-show excursion set the tone for an evening which became as much a celebration of Ivo’s increasingly deep relationship with Swindon as it was a conventional comedy bill. The advertised line-up had changed at short notice, with Jacob Hawley and Michael Odewale both unable to appear.
But there was a significant late replacement in comedian, writer and actor Rosie Jones, who joined Esther Manito, Swindon Old Town Comedy Club’s Sam Michael and Ivo on the Wyvern stage.
Jones, who has cerebral palsy, has become one of the best-known disabled comedians in Britain, with appearances including Taskmaster, Live at the Apollo, QI and The Last Leg. She is also the creator and star of Channel 4 comedy-drama Pushers and co-founder of the Rosie Jones Foundation, which supports people living with cerebral palsy.
Ivo also found time to reveal another Swindon-related humiliation during the evening. He told the audience he had recently recorded an appearance on Michael McIntyre’s BBC gameshow The Wheel, although the episode has yet to be broadcast. Perhaps inevitably, Ivo said he had chosen Swindon as his specialist subject.
Ivo told the audience he was asked a multiple-choice question about the meaning behind the town’s name. Swindon is generally understood to derive from the Old English swīn and dūn, meaning “pig hill”, or a hill associated with pigs. The council itself has previously described the name as coming from the Saxon “swine dun”.
Ivo, however, decided that answer sounded far too obvious. He instead selected “Stone Mound”. He was wrong.
Towards the end of Tuesday’s show, an audience member was placed inside the costume of Chess Ham, the gloriously absurd mascot of Chesham United.
Chess Ham is, appropriately enough, a pig with a chess piece on its head, originally created by comedian Sam Campbell for one of Chesham United’s comedy football events.
For Ivo, it provided the perfect visual punishment for failing one of the most Swindon questions imaginable.
Ivo led the Wyvern audience in a rendition of Swindon Town Forever, his parody of Oasis hit Live Forever, which he is attempting to establish as something approaching a County Ground anthem.
Ivo has now vowed to perform Swindon Town Forever outside the County Ground at every home game he is able to attend. But beneath the football references, mascot costumes and deliberate chaos was the reason everybody was in the Wyvern in the first place.
The evening was raising money for The Harbour Project, the Swindon charity which supports refugees and people seeking asylum as they rebuild their lives in the town. At one point Ivo handed the stage to Mohammed, a Harbour Project guest, who spoke directly to the audience about his own experience and the support he had received from the charity.
The Harbour Project is a cause with a personal connection for Ivo, whose mother volunteers with the organisation, and he has increasingly used his comedy, football fandom and growing relationship with Swindon to support its work.
Ivo had started the evening literally running across Swindon to prove his credentials as a supporter of the town’s football club. By the end, the message was about something broader, what it means to support the people who have also come to call Swindon home.
