Old Haunts


Today, Glyn and I went to have a look at the room upstairs at The George in Hitchin, where we originally launched Mostly Comedy; the first time we’ve been back since our last gig there in July of 2010.

It was strange to return. The venue holds a lot of happy memories, except for the constant heavy-lifting we would do up the precariously slippery fire escape around the back.

We would often climb this in complete darkness. I remember once carrying a full-scale electric piano up there; being watched and mocked all the way up by a gang of underage drinkers sat at the bottom.

“Tell us a joke”, one shouted as we mounted the stairs; every ounce of strength leaving our bodies as we wrestled with the unwieldy instrument.

I think we may have told them to fuck off. Actually, knowing us, we probably didn’t.

(The piano didn’t make us any funnier.)

The George was responsible for a lot of good things. If it hadn’t been for the screen rigged at the back of the stage, we would never have started using a projector. 

The screen has since been removed. It's a good job we're not starting out there now; if we did, we'd have absolutely no material.

It was a shame that our parting with the venue was so abrupt. The room upstairs had to be gutted of asbestos (which was nice to learn after we’d both spent so much time there). The then-manager dealt with it really badly; opting to phone down to us from her flat upstairs whilst we stood in the bar, rather than giving the news face to face.

She said we could eventually come back but wouldn’t offer a time scale; if we had waited, we would have been out of a venue for over a year.
 
It's nice to now see the place is in such good shape. The pub has a new owner, who’s cleaned it up brilliantly and has lots of great plans for it. This is what the venue needed; I wish him the best of luck.

I’m sure we’ll be climbing those stairs again in the not to distant future. This time, someone else can carry the piano.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Image
Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera
Read more

Stevenage: A (Tiny) River Runs Through it.

If ever a river was mis-sold, it’s the Roaring Meg in Stevenage. I just walked past it on my way to the retail park that has taken its name. They’re similarly uninspiring. The river is less of a roar and more of a dribble; cystitis sufferers produce greater flow. The retail park is soulless. What was once a thriving enterprise is nearly devoid of atmosphere, save an underlying essence of emptiness and despair. With a Toys R Us. When it was first built I was excited. Back then, the thought of a bowling alley, an ice rink, a Harvester and a Blockbuster Video within a small surface area was enticing. I celebrated many birthdays on site. There was an indoor cricket pitch there for a while where I once had a joint party with a friend. Why someone with an almost pathological fear of sport would agree to such a venture is beyond me, but I did it. Now, there’s very little at the Roaring Meg of note. The river would be a metaphor for the shopping ce
Read more

Hoo-ray and up She Rises.

So much has happened since my last post in March that this blog risks sounding like an itinerary. The main news is that Hitchin Mostly Comedy will return in the summer at a new venue, the Queen Mother Theatre . The road to this decision was convoluted, though enough fell into place en route to leave me optimistic about this new start. The catalyst was a survey I ran via our mailing list a few months back, in which I asked, "If the club returned in the current climate, with tickets still around £15 (and with similar line-ups), would you still attend?"; the response to which, in simple terms, was a resounding yes. Nearly 250 mailing list subscribers responded in a single week, with around a hundred also taking the option to leave some feedback. And only two people were abusive, which counts as a win when you consider they posted their comments online anonymously. Imagine how many more insults we would have received if the comedy club was a woman. Particularly if she was Diane
Read more