Skip to main content

Maltly Theatrey.


This evening's debut Maltings Arts Theatre Mostly Comedy was an enjoyable way to kick off our St Albans dates.

My prevailing post-gig thought is it felt like a perfect fit. The auditorium is extremely comfortable to work in, and perhaps the most focused space where we’ve presented the club, with the Market Theatre or Leicester Square Theatre at a very close second-and-third place. While there are lots of positives about the Sun, the biggest stumbling block is how easy it is for the audience’s focus to be lost, particularly when the performer isn’t a well-known one with an instantly recognisable rhythm. It’s a vast, high-ceilinged room with a tiny stage in the midst of a wide wall, with so much potential for distraction. Our techie Paul does an excellent job of lighting it to make the best of what we’ve got, but despite the definite improvement since we first started there, it’s still lacks the cohesion to be a great performance space.

Theatre’s where the performers work 'on the flat' - like the Maltings is - often feel a little weak and anticlimactic, but the set-up here is just right. There’s a sense you have nothing to work against, which is always a bonus, particularly when trying new ideas (which I did about ten minutes-worth tonight). You’re not fighting for attention, plus the room’s just the right size for a good reaction to spread; tonight’s gig was about half-full, but it didn’t feel like it. Both Arthur Smith and Barry From Watford went down a storm, and Glyn’s and my stuff went well too. It was a very promising start, with just the right line-up. It makes me excited about the two remaining dates we’ve currently confirmed (the second of which with Reginald D Hunter and Hattie Hayridge is selling rapidly). The only negative I see is that performing comedy in such a nice space makes me wish we can transfer all the best bits to the Sun too; that’s nothing against the Sun as a venue, but when it’s pitched against a well-equipped theatre, it can’t compete.

Popular posts from this blog

Shakerpuppetmaker.

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...

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...

"Speaking Words of Wisdom, Let it Shine."

Tonight saw the second instalment of BBC1’s latest advertise-a-musical-for-months-and-then-cast-it-with-performers-too-inexperienced-to-do-it-a-thon ‘Let it S̶h̶i̶t̶e̶ Shine’ (or as I call it: ‘REAL AUDITIONS ARE NOTHING LIKE THIS’). I didn’t watch it (clearly), but being reminded of how angry seeing just five minutes of it made me last week caused me to mull over what I would call a musical based on the band’s songbook, if I was responsible for it. Here are a my suggestions: IDEAS FOR TITLE OF A TAKE THAT MUSICAL: Barlow! Dirty Fat-Dancing Orange! A Million Love-changes-everything Songs Owen! Howard's End Pray Misérables Mamma Marka! Babe (with a pig as the lead) …BUT MY FAVOURITE HAS TO BE: Jason & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. "It was Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange..." (TAKE) THAT’S ENOUGH OF (TAKE) THAT.