Gymbox calls itself “the antidote to boring gyms”, and busts a nut to prove it. Its timetable includes a white-collar fight club, sword play training, exercises for “cavemen and neandergals” and a class called Death Row, which sounds as much fun as long division. Most chilling of all, though, is the prospect of laughing therapy. Is there anything worse than forced fun? I have a very sophisticated sense of humour. I like Renaissance comedy. I appreciate subversion of form, meta-textuality. The prospect of Gymbox telling me what is funny is deeply painful, yet a strangely logical culmination of this column: like a Turner prize judge forced to assess their own child’s drawing of a dog, painted by numbers.
And so I find myself at a class in south London, with about 12 others, plus a worryingly bubbly instructor. We start gently, lying on the floor and recalling a funny memory. Immediately I’m in trouble. I second guess my choice, try to find something better and come up blank. Everyone is moving on, warming up their laughs, chuckling then guffawing. I’m faking it, full of anxiety. Not only is it dawning on me that nothing funny has ever happened to me in my life, I also look out of place. I have a photographer with me, which is probably ruining the experience for others. I’m the only man here, and feel as if I’ve clodded into a female space. I’m wearing a Christmas T-shirt that reads: “Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-llama”, because I didn’t have anything else clean.
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