Club Hashtag, 10th April

A friend of mine had been to several Club Hashtags and had become something of an ambassador for the night, firmly believing it should attract more people than it was.

What my friend extolled about the night was its sense of randomness. Anarchy almost. It was essentially a clubnight but throughout the night, they would have performances of around 3 minutes – ten performances in all – with no announcement about them happening. They just started. These performances ranged all over the place, not being pinned down to any specific genre. You never quite knew what was going on, and I liked the sound of this. Finally it fell on a Friday I could make.

But everything was different. There was now an MC! And only three acts instead of ten! And these acts were very much introduced as the night went on, so you knew they were about to happen. They were still performances lasting roughly the length of one song so the amount of performance was drastically reduced.

However, the flavour of the previous events (that I imagine) was there in the form of these performances and the eclectic music played. They left you slightly bewildered though ultimately pleased. The first was the ‘youngest cannibal in Europe’ – a sweet girl who just happens to want to eat your flesh. About an hour later we had a fabulous performance from Fancy Chance doing an impression of Prince. Her singing wasn’t the strongest but her panache and stage presence was. It helped that she was actually smaller than Prince and was very convincing in stature!

And finally, after a false start, we had The Fabulous Russella doing a drag lip sync performance. I mean, I guess that’s what you’d call it. He first removed his fabulous shoes, and took up his position facing the back of the stage. The music started too quickly for him so he made them start at the beginning again, thus heightening our anticipation. He then spent the whole song miming with his back to the audience! Baffling. I’m sure it was meant to make a statement about something but I have no idea what.

The music was great. It tended to be stuff that everyone knew but without descending into cheese. It ranged from The Clash and Jilted John, Uptown Top Ranking through to a lot of drum n bass and jungle towards the end of the night. We danced and pogoed and jumped around until our feet hurt (or mine did at least).

I should also mention Steve Nice who was a very good host, not least because he caught wind of my meetup being there and decided to meander through the crowd until he found my little group, MCing over the track along the way. My meetup has never been sought out like that before!

In truth I was a little disappointed with the night because it was so different from what I’d thought it would be (bring back the randomness!). If I hadn’t had those expectations, however, then I would be all positivity, saying what a fun and slightly weird night I'd had, which I did. I would gladly go back again. 

It's Your Funeral, 12th September

It's Your Funeral was an absolute riot, I left with a huge smile on my face and one of the friends I was with said she had been smiling throughout. I am surprised that it wasn't standing room only, but if the quality is always that good I am sure they will soon be selling out each show.

The idea is that you have gathered to mourn someone's passing - in this case, it was Jack the Ripper. But we're mourning in style - a sort of New Orleans dixie jazz music style with plenty of laughs and spectacles thrown in. It's got everything - storytellers, dancers, singers, comedy. It's one hell of a wake.

The evening starts with the funeral procession, complete with brass band who provide backing music throughout the evening and play songs to take you into and out of the interval.

Then the compere, Bang Crosby took to the stage and introduced the acts, many (but not all) of which are themed around Jack the Ripper. The first act was in fact a mime - the Ungewinster. I don't think I've really ever watched mime before - it didn't really appeal - but this guy did a superb job. In all black and white stripes, with a manic smile he was quite a grotesque character whose movements on stage to dark music reminded me of body-popping more than traditional mime. It was a pleasant surprise.

Next up we had Miss Carmen Mon Oxide who performed an operatic aria mourning her deceased husband who sounded quite the philandering scoundrel. She had a fantastic voice as well as being a good performer.

We then had a slightly odd interlude which was an homage to George Formby - a window washer came out and 'washed' some windows. He clearly had emotional problems though as he ended up drinking all his window cleaner. We were left wondering what to make of this and whether he'd be coming back later to do a follow up. He didn't, which was quite amusing in itself.

Next on stage was what can best be described as a 'silent movie' live brought to us by the Little Shop of Horrors who hammed up to great effect Jack the Ripper going home with one of his victims and trying to kill her, complete with a chase scene, a gruesome 'disembowelling' (sausages being pulled out of her stomach) and a big reveal that good old Jack was actually a woman! Yep, you even got to see some tits.  

Just before the interval we had Tom Baker - a consummate raconteur tell us the story of Mad Carew (The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God) accompanied by an accomplished 'saw musician'. I've been to a few storytelling events in my time now but this guy was at the top of the game. It was more like an acting performance than merely telling a story such was his presence on stage and command of the audience. The saw musician had a perfect sense of timing, providing an enhancing and amusing soundtrack. It is hard to pick one stand-out act of the night but this was definitely a contender.

After the intermission we were treated to four more acts, starting with Snake Fervor, a woman whose speciality seemed to be inflicting pain unto herself. This was the sort of act you watched peeking through your fingers - not quite wanting to see but unable not to watch out of morbig fascination. First she stubbed a cigarette out on her tongue, then she put hooks through her upper and lower lips and swung a heavy bag from them around and around. Then she stood, nay stomped on a load of broken glass. You could see traces of blood on her legs afterwards. Macabre indeed.

Jaz Delorean, lead singer of Tankus the Henge (who I haven't yet seen) came on and performed I put a Spell on You with his accordion. His voice was so gravelly and raspy, listening to him really made me want a drink. Then he sang a song of heartbreak about losing his ex to a Gypsy King which was quite rousing. 

A creepy and beautiful solo dance followed this up as Mary Beth Morossa tapped to the voice of someone reciting the story of Edward and Virginia (I think?), as they tango in the lamplight while he kills her. It's a little hard to describe how Mary Beth danced along to the voiceover to create a compelling act but it was wonderful to watch.

To round things off we had the Fabulous Bakewell Boys who I was already familiar with from Lucha Britannia Mexican wrestling. I didn't know what sort of thing they would do when they were moonlighting from wrestling but it turned out they did comedy and they were pretty damn funny! Their 'act' is to be slightly dim northern lads but they do this in an endearing and not overly offensive way - it's just a load of silliness on stage really. 

The whole night reminded me of old-fashioned vaudeville variety shows, except with a modern, macabre twist. Honestly, I can't rave about it enough. 

Coney Island, 18th August

Coney Island sounded like it could be a lot of fun but I didn’t really know what to expect. It was supposed to capture the spirit of Coney Island in New York and have some silly games and even a hot dog eating contest. The music was to be 50s, 60s and French pop. It intrigued me.

Well, I finally got to go to it Saturday night. It is held once a month at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club and unfortunately it happened to fall on what must have been one of the hottest days of the year. Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club isn’t just an ironic name, it really is a working men’s club and I suspected their air conditioning wouldn’t be state of the art. I was right, it wasn’t up to scratch to deal with a heaving, busy club night, but that was the only downside to the night.

We arrived and were given the groundrules for entrance by one of the doormen, namely that we must leave quietly and not congregate around the exits because the people over the road were a care home and kept complaining and would really rather the BGWMC was shut down. In an effort to ensure this doesn’t happen, we were happy to agree to the terms and gain entrance. 

We went in and even though it was only 10:30, it felt like the party was in full swing already. Along one wall were the funfair games, which of course we had a go at. There were minor queues for each game but they went swiftly enough. The first I tried my hand at was a mini pitch and putt – you had to get the golf ball between the cutout’s legs. I was so close the first time, but just seemed to get worse on my next two turns. No prize for me. 

Then I tried knocking tin cans off the wall. The lady overseeing this activity was a lot more generous with the definition of ‘three turns per person’. After at least my sixth go I had knocked most of them off the wall and earned myself a prize. Which is to have a lucky dip in a trash bag. I pulled out a flowery hairband. Prizes other people won included a wagon wheel, old not-so-great DVDs (Confidence with Rachel Weisz anyone?) and a mini can of deodorant (perhaps quite useful in that hot environment).

They were also giving away free ice cream and had a lady doing free temporary tattoos (otherwise known as body painting) of dubious quality. All very silly fun.

But they also had some rather unexpected entertainment on the main stage. The first was a magician who had been wandering the crowd but was given a few minutes on the stage to wow the entire audience. With a bit of participation from a member of the crowd, his act was none too bad. Then there was a lady in fetish wear who did a bit of a striptease before stapling blue lights to her body, piercing herself with sparklers and setting alight to them before flouncing around on stage a bit. Quite a sight.

Warning - semi-adult content in the video!

And then there were some competitions! A dance competition where several people on the dance floor were picked upon to go up on stage and compete for the audience’s approval. I am very proud to say my friend won, and beat off some stiff competition. And finally, the hot dog competition. This was actually a little disappointing and not quite the spectacle I was hoping. They picked three people at random to compete and were told they had five minutes to eat as many hot dogs as they could. The clock started counting down and the three people began to eat. Sedately. Normally. Boringly. They had clearly never seen a hot dog challenge or any other kind of timed food challenge before.

Ah well. After that was over it was time to concentrate on dancing and that we did. The music was excellent although it did take a slightly weird turn towards the end (I wonder if this was the French pop part). Maybe they keep that in the bag to help persuade people to leave as the night drew to an end. We thought we'd try to request something else. I went and loitered by the DJ booth looking somewhat hopeful and friendly but failed to make an impression on the DJ who dutifully ignored me.

I have already described what BGWMC is like inside in my previous post on Homework held there, and it was just the same really, except there was a scattering of tables and chairs instead of in rows. It’s definitely a funny little venue; as we were going in some old boy was coming out – it was functioning as a regular club in the downstairs part which surprised some of my companions. But so far 2/2 of the nights I’ve been to have been grand, and I don’t see any reason to imagine the other varied aren’t just as good. I will be gathering more evidence when I go their Double R Club night (cabaret the way David Lynch might do it) in a few weeks. 

Homework at The Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, 30th November

My friend Fiona who is a bit of a literary type (it helps, when you're in publishing) brought my attention to the fact that Homework was on that night and she was going, did I want to come? And it was the last Homework of the year. I had planned a relaxing night in with Stephen but it seemed a fitting end to my first enjoyable day of unemployment to go out for a drink or two. In a highbrowish kind of way. I am quite partial to a literary night myself, having been to several BookSlams over the last few years, and also one Literary Death Match and I always find them enjoyable. The added bonus of going to this one, of course (besides it being in Bethnal Green; only one tube stop away) was that I'd be killing two birds with one stone. Attending Homework and striking that off the list and seeing what the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club was like. 

Homework is a monthly night that runs from May(ish) until November(ish) every year which is put on by Aisle16. They are, in their own words 'a looser collective of writers sharing ideas and collaborating on projects as and when'. Although I guess 'as and when' has to coincide roughly with their commitments to Homework. Each Homework has a theme, and this month's theme was Poet in Residence.  The Aisle16 team had to take themselves out of their normal writing habitats and become 'poets in residence' of a different place (building/town/state of mind) of their choosing. 

We had actually seen three of the six poets before, at the aforementioned BookSlams. At first we were a little disappointed by this, although if I had bothered to do my research I would have realised it was inevitable that at least two of them would have been there, considering they are the founders. Last time we'd seen them Joe Dunthorne (author of Submarine) and Ross Sutherland, they had done an ill-concieved 'live poem writing' made up of tweets from the evening on a poem which had been projected onto a wall. 

I'm kinda glad I didn't look though, as it might have put me off - I like to see new people rather than pay to see people we've already experienced and that would have been a shame. Because I absolutely loved this night. The places the poets chose to go and be residence in ranged from a library in Bungay to Occupy LSE to Beachy Head. And the poems they wrote there were enraging, moving and hilarious. I don't think I have enjoyed any other literary night more. Fiona said that normally the subjects were a bit more lighthearted than they were that night but I didn't mind at all. It so happened that the 'heavier' things they touched upon were things I had become interested in myself recently. Well, things probably most of the audience were interested in - CEO pay, council cuts, the closure of libraries and er... suicide. But even addressing these serious issues, all the poets managed to sew in some amusement to the tapestry they were weaving and provide light relief. 

And, somewhat of a surprise, they managed to get a real life poet in residence - the ex-Poet Laureat himself - Andrew Motion to come along and do a reading. It was well worth a fiver.

But I am not only reviewing Homework but also the venue in which it was performed. The Working Men's Club. Do not be fooled into thinking this is just a trendy theme for a bar. There is no mistaking that this either still is, or was until very recently, a real working men's social club. It looks like one from the outside, and it smells like one on the inside. It comes complete with those funny sort of plush velvet-seated chairs, heavy drapes and a little bar in the hall manned by people who looked like they were more used to serving working men than a bunch of middle class people 'slumming it' to watch poetry and sip wine.

Given the milieu I wasn't sure if I trusted the quality of the wine and stuck to cider. Stephen was drinking blackcurrant and sodas. The round together cost me a fiver. That didn't seem so bad until I got a sight of the drinks list and saw that my cider was only £3.50. £1.50 for a blackcurrant and soda is a bit steep. 

The Working Men's Club plays host to many a different sort of night - karaoke, burlesque, electropop club nights, gay nights. I'd like to go back and see what it's like on a night when it really lets its hair down.