A Visit from the Badger Parade.

In the ever-growing list of high-profile Mostly Comedys, last night's gig probably gets the prize for the biggest.

Us with Harry Hill, post show (12.07.18

In terms of audience size, it won by a long chalk, with 350 people squeezed into our temporary home of Hitchin Town Hall to see Harry Hill and Simon Munnery, which is over twice the amount we’d normally fit in for a sold out date at the Sun and nearly four times the capacity of our old venue The Market Theatre Studio (are you enjoying these statistics?). We’d had no intention of selling so many if it weren’t for Harry’s availability changing, meaning we had to push the gig a day later and switch to the Town Hall as The Sun wasn’t available; this ended up working in the night’s favour, as a sizeable chunk of punters who missed out first time around had a second chance to book, ultimately leaving very few people disappointed, which was a positive outcome after so many pre-sales selling out so quickly leaving some regulars disappointed.

Moving to the Town Hall was not without its challenges, as the room is notorious for poor sound what with being such a high-ceilinged cavernous space. Our sound technicians Paul and Andy pulled out all the stops to combat this, but we inevitably couldn’t resolve everything, leading to a little polite negative feedback about audio quality, though once the second half started there was a lot more presence.

On top of this, the venue’s recent refurbishment which was mired with controversy threw up a whole catalogue of ridiculous decisions that make it far harder to stage an event there successfully. Bizarrely, the set-up used to be much better; my old band took part in a Battle of the Bands there around 1996ish, when the venue used to have a number of dressing rooms backstage, a stage door and a crossover for stage left to right; twenty-two years later, that’s all gone, bar a single dressing room to off to the right that can only be accessed by crossing the stage. There’s in fact no way to get backstage except for from the treads at the front, unless you wedge something into one of the fire doors to gain access. They’ve also lessened the stage depth and put in a shocking sound system that isn’t worth the space it takes up.

It’s frustrating to be in a space that has so much potential and is sorely underused, when all it would take is someone familiar with theatre to advise on what’s needed to make it a functional venue for touring shows; I dread to think how many people in the audience live in Hitchin yet have never passed through its doors; it’s such a waste.

Simon Munnery previewing his new show last night.

Thankfully, we managed to find a way around most of these setbacks to still present a great night. Both Simon and Harry were lovely and gave the show their all. If you told me ten years ago that Harry Hill would one day headline Mostly Comedy I would have absolutely never have believed it. His set was a masterclass in holding the audience in the palm of his hand; an audience who could scarcely believe he was there.

 

Harry Hill onstage at last night's Hitchin Mostly Comedy

Once again, The Beatles lent a hand when it came to small talk, when Harry mentioned how much he liked the song Hey Bulldog that's always our playout. I was aware he was a fan so wasn’t surprised it came up, but we had a great chat about our mutual love of the band, with us swapping stories about meeting Paul McCartney, with Harry throwing in the Top Trump of having met George Harrison too. I suppose we can at least both be grateful we’ve never met Ringo; I know: I’m being unnecessarily glib.