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 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.