Yesterday, controversially, was the first day in nineteen months with a Mostly Comedy at the end of it, which is the longest gap between gigs in our nearly thirteen-year history.
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| Sharing a showbiz stance with Phil Cornwell. |
It's fair to say we had no idea how long we'd be closed when we cancelled our show planned for March 2020. If anything, we felt we might be being over-cautious. But little did we know what lay ahead. And while that still applies today, to an extent, it was at least good to take baby steps towards pre-pandemic normality. Now, we just need public interest and confidence to build to the point that we start to pull in enough punters to make a profit while being as Covid-secure as possible.
For the most part, the show was like putting on a pair of comfy shoes once we got past a couple of tech issues which meant we opened late. While we only started approximately fifteen minutes after our advertised kickoff, the mad dash to the end of our soundcheck left me feeling frazzled, sweaty and stressed. And, the backstage set-up at the Town Hall being what it is, the lack of a mirror meant I had to get changed in the toilets Front-of-House, cramming my suitcase into a cubicle with me for a bit of privacy. And there's nothing like having barely enough space to get dressed in to then catch your breath by the sinks while in a mask to contribute to your sense of overload. I hate starting shows in a state of mental burnout.
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| Jenny Collier faces our Paxman-like interrogation for the More Than Mostly Comedy podcast. |
Thankfully, we had a winning line-up for our first show back, including another personal comedy hero in Phil Cornwell. My old band would regularly quote Stella Street between ourselves like a secret code, and I based my low-level Jagger, Bowie and Beatles impressions on Phil and his collaborator John Sessions' voices. And, as with many of the people to play our club, I would never have dreamt that our paths would cross one day with a shared purpose. Mostly Comedy tends to nurture the disbelief of the kid inside if nothing else.
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| An audience shot (from Caroline Cook) of us interviewing Phil. |
Consequently, it was a joy to discover how chatty and personable he was from the moment of arrival, which was a gift for the live podcast. To have the man behind all those Stella Street characters (not to mention Dave Clifton from I'm Alan Partridge) gleefully quote his lines to us was great. Add the lovely and excellent Jenny Collier to proceedings - who also confessed to being a habitual Stella Street quoter - and you've got the perfect line-up to reintroduce our onstage interviews. Now, we need people to book to get us past a potentially tight autumn/winter and, hopefully, into the new year. The next few months are still make-or-break for the club, but we'll at least give it a fair crack of the whip before throwing in the towel (to mix metaphors).
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| Mostly Sparkly. |