A crucifix hangs above the doorframe of The Stand’s green room, with a warning (‘Abandon hope’) for those about to take the stage. Rescued from the Glasgow comedy club’s former venue on Woodlands Road, the symbolism has acquired greater irony in its new setting in Lansdowne Church, the Victorian Gothic landmark formerly known as Websters Theatre, named after World War I casualty Alf Webster who designed its striking stained-glass windows.

‘The first time I walked into the club, I could still smell the Sunday school; I could still smell the kirk,’ Susan Morrison chuckles. Having compered the opening night of both the old venue 25 years ago and its successor, she reflects: ‘It’s just such a weird feeling, running about the stage, swearing, shouting and having fun in the most spectacularly un-presbyterian way going.’

Whatever faith you retain, it certainly seems ambitious to launch a comedy club during a cost-of-living crisis. The Comedy Store has just closed its Manchester premises. And The Stand, a pioneer of live comedy in central Scotland, has, in recent years, acquired stiff competition from the Glee chain in Glasgow and Monkey Barrel in Edinburgh. ‘It’s madness opening a new venue right now,’ agrees Stand co-founder Tommy Sheppard. ‘A lot of people are quite sad about the old club closing; there are a lot of memories there.’ But with the lease ending on the venerable basement institution, Sheppard says he and his staff are now trying to replicate the best of the old building ‘to make this just as good, with the potential to be considerably better’.

Comedy snobs may lament the passing of the old Stand’s low, laughter-trapping ceiling, under which Kevin Bridges performed his first set, Frankie Boyle steadily honed his act, and Stewart Lee transformed the compact stage forever, turning it into a phallic catwalk to record his 41st Best Stand-Up Ever! special. But on the opening weekend of the new, double mezzanine, 300-seater room, I gave this only passing thought. Sat amid an intimate layout of cabaret-style tables for mischievous Chinese comic He Huang, the house was later fully sold out for The Sunday Service Show headlined by Susie McCabe. Taking over Father Ted star Michael Redmond’s weekly former residency (which she alternates with Christopher Macarthur-Boyd), McCabe reckons The Stand has ‘grown up a bit, coming out of the basement… into the crypt?’

The much wider stage, drop-down TV screens and full wheelchair access increase the diversity of acts who can appear at the venue. And it ought to prove a boon for Whose Lunch Is It Anyway?, a new Sunday format embracing the resurgent interest in improv. The room’s theatrical trappings, reminiscent of Òran Mór further down Great Western Road, betrays an interest in poaching some of the older, affluent West End crowd who attend A Play, A Pie And A Pint seasons there. Morrison is hosting Cabaret Of The Exceptional Imagination, an irreverent daytime show platforming the discussion of ideas, while Raymond Mearns and other veteran stand-ups appear at The Comedy Speakeasy during afternoons.

The Stand also hosts podcast recordings, including its own, as well as Chris Forbes’ cringe revisits in Stop Watering Dead Flowers and BBC presenter Nicola Meighan’s A Kick Up The Arts. Fitted with a camera set-up to film stand-up specials, every single set on stage is being recorded for comics to share clips on their social media. Plans are also afoot to introduce a regular pub quiz in the separate second bar, built out of pews from the church, as well as plays, including a kids’ Sleeping Beauty pantomime at Christmas led by comic Billy Kirkwood and a more adult version of The Wizard Of Oz from the Weegie Hink Ae That? trio.

Expanding beyond a stand-up programme that sees the likes of James Acaster, Olga Koch, Mark Watson and Emmanuel Sonubi perform in the next few months, there’s a stated desire to showcase more sketch acts. Longer-term, the club is also considering staging music gigs for the first time. ‘Stand-up will always be our bread and butter,’ says venue manager Fraser Milroy. ‘But we have an opportunity now to broaden the types of comedy and types of performer we have here. Glasgow’s humour has always been a part of its identity. And it deserves a club like this. I’m hoping we can once again be its beating heart of comedy.’

Find out more at The Stand's website.