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Digitalia

Digital Abstracts

By Steve Wilde

That Was Only A Week?
November 28, 2009

Ahhhh! At last. A night in. Apart from Thursday [more of that later] I've been out every night since Sam's 24 Hour Party People In A Disco Dungeon Experience.

This time a week ago we had been in Brighton for a few hours and had started "preparations" for the party at Paul and Sarah's, decorated by Kerry & Rob... and attended by sundry party animals. And it really was a 24 hour party people experience. I cut out mid afternoon on Sunday, with Kev, to see Tony's new band play [Sorry, the band name has completely escaped me now!] at the Hobgoblin. Which was pretty hardcore [in a punk sense]. We saw a couple of other bands as well and hung around for a bit of a chat before braving the cold to head for the relative security of Paul & Sarah's. Don't ask me to recall any of the party now it's a distant blur in the fun bank.

Monday was booked as a day of recovery but after a couple of Bloody Mary's at Kev & Karol's we had Paul round to join us and were heading for the Dorset for "lunch", then it was back to Kev & Karol's before a far later train than we had anticipated back to London.

We had already arranged to catch up with a former work colleague on Tuesday so it was another night in the pub, followed by a night out watching football at Fulham on Wednesday and finally a night in on Thursday. Except that was the day that Chris was due to visit us from Leicester and there was catching up to be done. We met Chris at about seven-ish, headed back to ours and finally hit the hay around 2.00am.

Yesterday was a bit of a struggle due to the the red wine hangover but by the time we got to the Wilton's Music Hall for Mixed Up North and I had a couple of Guinness's I was back on track, if a little tired. Chris had wanted to visit the venue for ages and bought us all tickets for the play as an excuse to check the place out. The theatre, behind the marvellous Mahogany Bar, is in a beautiful state of disrepair and was quite a distraction during the play just thinking how it must have looked during its former lives up to 150 years ago...

A sun-burner chandelier with 300 gas jets and 27,000 cut crystals originally dominated a mirrored hall where "Champagne Charlie" was first sung and rumour has it that the first ever Can-Can was performed and promptly banned. The original cast iron 'barley sugar' pillars still support a papier-mâché balcony under paper roses set in a vaulted roof.

1,500 people used to cram into the venue in its day. Today the hall has a licence to seat 300 people. In 1888 the hall became the East End Mission of the Methodist Church serving 2000 meals a day to strikers in the first dockers' strike of 1889. It also served as the HQ for the people of the East End who gathered to stop Mosley's fascists in the Battle of Cable Street [1936].

Its worth a visit to see the bar if nothing else and to sample Jane's food or look in awe as the Guinness Surger does its thing. These may be quiet common actually but I've never seen one before! If you go before December 5th you may get tickets for Mixed Up North too. Written by Robin Soans. It's based on real events surrounding the difficulties of uniting divided racial communities in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley and is both funny and moving. The Out of Joint company is famed for this style of verbatim theatre. We enjoyed it a lot, there were a lot of excellent performances, so thanks Chris.

Now I'm back from football again and dried and thawed out I don't intend to do anything tomorrow... Well, we may go for a walk, weather permitting, to check out the new Herne Hill Bookshop. But that's it!

Categories: Music, London, Books, Theatre

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