comedy – Page 52 – Robert Garnham

An Interview with MargOH Channing

Last month I performed in New York and I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of MargOH Channing. MargOH is a singer and comedian whose performances mix high camp and cabaret style singing with the seriousness of life itself, issues of identity and representation. We hit it off immediately, sharing a green room, though it must be noted that she finished all the Martini, and I had to help her down the stairs after a bit of a stumble on the second landing. MargOH is an engaging and almost tragic figure who has been very inspirational to me personally. I jumped at the chance to probe her in more detail in light of the recent presidential elections.

1- You come from a fishing community. How did you end up on the New York cabaret circuit?
Darling my road was long and winding. I came from a very broken family so I had to go out on my own at a very young age. I actually moved to NYC as a child to work at my Aunt’s bar where I was discovered by Russ Meyer and was cast in his film “Common Law Cabin” and the rest is history…I call my cabaret career winding down as I’ve done just about everything, even Liberace!

2- I’ve noted from your work that you like the occasional drink. How does alcohol affect your performance?

I don’t know how anyone can perform without it? Many years ago Elaine Stritch told me after I had a rough night at the Reno Sweeney. She said MargOH! “Stick to one before the show, one during and afterwards whose counting”. She came on a night when my panties fell off and I tripped and fell on Rex Reed, he was not happy as he picked pubes out of his teeth…well anyway its not like I gave him the clap!

3- Dear God. Trump. Did that actually happen? What’s the mood right now in liberal New York?

Let me make a martini! People in this country are basically stupid! Reality TV has leaked into our news sources and everything is so sensationalized we can no longer tell the difference between fiction and reality any longer. Plus everyone is very nostalgic instead of looking to the future. The fact is people over 65 and their white kids vote for the old days when certain people knew their place. That is what got Trump elected. When we as a nation realize “Political Correctness” is progess then maybe we can elect visionaries instead of dusty old hacks…was that too harsh?
4- Your performances and incredibly funny, occasionally tender, and with excellent comic timing. Who are your influences?

I have so many influences but most of all Judy Garland is my muse, someone to aspire to be as a performer. When I started performing I wanted to be a celebrity, you know be loved, but that’s all wrong! As you get older you realize its about the work and sharing that connection with an audience. Judy did that better than anyone and I try to remember that everytime I walk out on stage, things may not be perfect but if you connect with just one person then it’s all good. I’m also a big fan of Totie Fields, Sandra Bernhard and downtown legend Penny Arcade.
5- What’s a perfect night, in the eyes of MargOh Channing?

Honestly, a good old dinner party with friends where someone ends up under the table or you wake up with someone in your bed and can’t remember a thing…Those are the moments I cherish…

6- There’s an underlying hint of personal tragedy in your act. Have times been hard?

Are you sure that’s not my Chanel #5? In the world of Social Media where everyone shares their good times, I like to mess with everyone and let them see the real me…I never met a happy comedian, have you?

7- When you’re putting a show together, what makes the perfect big opening?

As an audience member I do not like formula in a show, makes me feel they are taking the easy way out, challenge me please! Actually for the first time in my new show HUNG I open with a song, “You Go To My Head” . I’ve never done that before and do find it fun. In the past I’ve always opened with an overture or entrance song by my back up singers but since they all quit I had to change it up. The one thing I do always do is end with a ballad. Once, my musical director Tracy Stark asked me ‘Why do you always end with a sad song”? I replied, “I am a sad song.”
8- Do your family miss you, now that you’re a big star in the big city?

Of course, my sister Rita is always asking me to come back to Bangor to be her receptionist, she is a highly successful Opthalmologist! I never would have thought that was possible since she is cross-eyed but she is a trooper. My mother on the other hand is a bit of a problem so we shipped her off to a retirment home in Wasilla, Alaska. I thought it best Sarah Palin keep an eye on her or vice-versa…They come to shows when they can so we are all good!
9- What influences your writing?

The underdog is my inspiration for writing. Injustice and inequality drive me to do what I do. I never felt part of the party so I write about that. It’s not always being the belle of the ball, it’s how you trip the one that is in the nicest possible way to let them know they may deserve it but I’m not sure why because you seem wretched. Does that make sense?
10- What advice might you have for any young buck who would like to take up performing?

My best advice for an upcoming performer is something Burlesque Legend World Famous BOB said to me. “If you aren’t making yourself nervous or frightened every couple of weeks then you aren’t trying hard enough”. It was the best advice i was ever given and it’s so true. Do what you love to do and the audience will come, it may be harder and take much longer than you thought but when it happens you’ll know you stayed true to yourself and its magic. XOXO MargOH!

Check out MargOH’s website:

http://margohchanning.blogspot.co.uk

Professionalism and free gigs

Lately I’ve been pondering on professionalism, or more precisely, my own professionalism as a performance poet. The reason I’ve been pondering on professionalism is that I’d like to get to a stage where I can say definitely that I am a professional. And I suppose the ultimate definition of professionalism is that I get paid to be a performance poet, and that it is sustainable and economically viable.
So the thing is that I’m quite lucky at the moment on two counts. The first is that I have a job, a nine to five job in retail management. So whether I’m professional as a poet or not, I’m still going to get paid. The second lucky thing is that I get paid to perform, in the most part. I also have books to sell and workshops, and I organise poetry events, and every now and then I get commissions which also pay. So in that sense I’m professional in that it’s slightly more than just a hobby.
However, I still do things which I’m sure a ‘professional’ wouldn’t. I find myself doing lots of free gigs, and these gigs will never be economically viable. It’s all very well doing a free gig if it’s for charity, giving up ones time for a good cause. But a lot of the major gigs I’ve done over the last year have been unpaid.
I live in a very silly part of the world. Paignton is nowhere near any major urban hub. There’s no culture here, so therefore there are no major poetry gigs. The last spoken word gig in Paignton was probably when the Epicentre Cafe held one of its wonderful Word Command nights, and that’s about four years ago. And then there was my book launch on the local book shop, but that’s about it. So if I’m going get paid for a gig, it would be Bristol or London at the nearest, and that means two or three hours on a train.
So every gig that I get paid for entails expense of travel and time, and actually getting there in the first place. I’m very fortunate to have had paid gigs all over the Uk and have made a bit of money doing so. But a lot of the gigs I’ve done have been unpaid.
So why do I do them? I was pondering this last night. What are the benefits? I suppose the major one is that I meet new people and get a chance to sell them books. I see other performers and o get inspired, and it’s always great to network and meet new and exciting people. And I can use my old material and see that it still works, or try out new pieces.
If I was making a living from poetry, then this would not be a viable means of making a living. Yet we need the free gigs so that people can see us. It’s advertising, and the best kind of advertising. That’s what I always tell myself.
So I’m happy to do the free gigs if they’re doable, but I have to choose them wisely. If every performer demanded payment then the gigs wouldn’t happen. If I were to leave my job and concentrate on my art full time, (something I’m considering at the moment), then I’d have to think very hard about such events.

I got heckled twice this week. Weirdly.

So something weird happened the other day, and the weird thing that happened was that I got heckled. And then two days later something weird happened again and that was that I got heckled. And the weird thing about this weird thing that happened was that this happened with the same poem. And another weird thing about this weird thing was that the heckles were both so dissimilar even though they happened during the same poem.
It’s a new poem which I use as an introduction to myself. I wrote it in Edinburgh and I performed it for the first time at the Boomerang Club when I co-headlined there. One of the inspirations for writing it was watching the wonderfully powerful performers in Edinburgh such as Dandy Darkly and Matt Panesh, people who I really admire and use language effectively. It also uses highly literary language for comic effect, accentuating the traditional idea of a spoken word poet from Shakesperian times.
So the second time I performed it was in Exeter in Sunday night, and because it’s a poem which introduces me and my oeuvre, it’s the first poem of my set. So I performed it and someone shouted out, ‘I like that!’
Which is a nice heckle. I did a stand up comedy course a few years ago and one of the sessions was all about heckling. The course instructor told us that there are several types of heckle: just helping out, saying something nice, being drunk, or showing off. So this was a saying something nice heckle, the correct response to which is, ‘thanks’. But like a deer caught in a car headlights, I just said, ‘muhhhh’.
The rest of the set went very well.
And the second time I performed the poem was in Swindon two days later. At the end of it someone shouted out, ‘That doesn’t rhyme’.
Of course it doesn’t rhyme. It doesn’t have to rhyme. Poems don’t have to rhyme. Ok, there was a lot of rhymey poetry at the gig where I was performing, but my own stuff seldom rhymes. Perhaps this was a ‘just helping out’ kind of heckle, and my response to it was, ‘thanks’. Which I suppose is a delayed reaction to the heckle from the last gig.
So there we have it. I’m looking forward to performing the poem again because it seems to elicit a response of sorts. Or maybe it’s just a wacky coincidence. I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on.

The most insignificant full stop (part seven)

I asked my assistant Lars to write a full stop on the table while I was out of the room. My job was then to find it and eradicate this.
If I hadn’t found the full stop, the knowledge of its continued existence would have given it a significance far beyond its actual worth.

Or I would have begun to doubt that Lars had drawn it in the first place.

Or I would have begun to doubt the existence of Lars.

You can watch the video here.
https://youtu.be/9TDkQN-tbuI

What is Static?

I’ve been developing Static for almost a year now. During that time it has metamorphosed into something completely different from its origins, and the discovery process has been both fun and rewarding from an artistic point of view. Along the way, I have had to learn a lot of new things and come to terms with concepts which is not known anything about, such as ‘scratch nights’, ‘blocking’, ‘mind maps’. It’s all been a little bit scary.
‘Static’ the show sprang from a short performance art piece which I’ve performed here and there, also called ‘Static’. Indeed, the show ends with this piece, which people have often described as thought provoking, sad and subdued, which isn’t my normal style at all! During the piece I would examine issues of movement and geography, expectations and identity, all during a five minute ‘poem without words’.

When it came to thinking of ideas for a one hour show, I thought back to this piece and I decided that I could expand it, make it autobiographical, and yet encompass much else, focussing more explicitly on issues of identity. This forced me to look at my own life and upbringing, my own desires and motivations, my own life. Born and raised in Surrey, there was always this sense of movement, which is something I touch on in the show.
The writing process has been fun. I started out with a loose narrative and some old poems which I’d performed all over the UK, but I soon realised that I should write new material for it. And because the show is autobiographical, the poems are more introspective than normal, with one or two of the usual comedy ones thrown in for relief. Four of them are brand new and will be heard when the show is performed for the first time. Two of them have wriggled free of the show, and I have performed them for the last couple of months: ‘Jamie’, and ‘The Doors’.
The show also incorporates some prop work which I have been developing, including a theremin, and a large hadron collider.
So I’m looking forward now to the challenge of learning the show, working on it and perfecting it. I’ve been working with Ziggy Abd El Malak, a fantastic director who has completely changed the way that I perform and approach both performance and rehearsal.
The show will be performed at the Artizan Gallery in Torquay for the first time on 29th May, then at the Guildford Fringe, before a run at the Edinbrugh Fringe in August.

How the song ‘Manhattan’ is actually about Paignton, Devon. True story!

Story Behind the Song

The most cursory glance at Wikipedia or Google will not reveal the full story behind the song ‘Manhattan’, written by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart in 1925 and sung by, among others, Ella Fitzgerald and Lee Wiley. Originally intended for the revue ‘Golden Gaieties’, the song has grown to become a signature not only of Fitzgerald’ career, but also an evocative glimpse of 1920s New York society. However, the truth behind its composition is strange enough to be a subject for a comedy itself, and it is this that I shall concentrate on in this essay.
The story of the lyricist Lorenz ‘Larry’ Hart – (for it is the lyrics of the song that I shall be concentrating on) – in its sadness, is a direct contrast to the sensitivity and humour of which his work is most remembered. Throughout his life he struggled with alcoholism and also the emotional turmoil of his homosexuality which, at the time, was not a socially accepted mode of living. At the same time he was enormously successful as a lyricist – his partnership with Richard Rogers – who wrote the music – resulted in such songs as Blue Moon, My Funny Valentine, The Lady is a Tramp and, of course, Manhattan. That such a talented man should die relatively young and alone of pneumonia at the age of 48 is, of course, tragic for one who brought such joy to the casual listener.

It is only recently that the full story of ‘Manhattan’ has come to light. As in most cases of art, the simple and timeless lyrics were the product of much editing before a definitive version was arrived at. It is in this process that the most surprising discovery has, of late, been made – ‘Manhattan’ was originally intended not to be about Manhattan at all. A first draft, discovered by historians of popular song, corresponds with the time that the lyricist spent at the English seaside resort of Paignton where, incognito, he was able to recuperate in a harbour side boarding house and recharge his creative batteries.

Paignton must have seemed a thousand miles from 1920s New York. Indeed, it is odd to think that a lyricist used to the lights of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and Times Square should be immersed in a location in which the only comparable sight was the splendour of the Torbay Road or the lights of the pedestrian crossing at the bottom of Victoria Street. But Hart was industrious during his stay in Paignton. His landlady at the Haddock’s Halt Guest House recalls visitors to his room, local theatrical types with whom he collaborated on such shows as the Fish Gutter’s Lament and the ever-popular I Am The Wife of the Crazy Golf Man. How sad it is that such scripts are forever lost, and that Larry Hart should have used the pseudonym Maud Jenkins on all such promotional material.

It is not know whether Hart partook of such local delicacies as fish ‘n’ chips or candy floss during his stay in Paignton. As an advocate of inner rhyming in his work, it is certain that, even if he were not aware of their taste, he would almost certainly have attempted to rhyme them. If one were to look at the work he produced on his return to the Big Apple, one will find evidence of Paignton’s memory buried, as if a code, in such songs as ‘The Lady Is A Tramp’ or ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’. ‘My heart is sings like a crazed midships man / My eyes they sting as if hit by a fish ‘n’ chips pan’, or , ‘You’re woozy over wine, you feint over beer / You stole my heart on Paignton Pier’.

It is interesting, of course, to speculate on the adventures of Larry Hart during his stay in Paignton. An intensely private man, he was not prone to mix well with other people – however, local historians have placed him at many a local party in the Paignton area and there are reports of him joining Agatha Christie, Gilbert and Sullivan, the D’Oyly Cartes, Albert Einstein and others at a wild party just outside of town, dancing the Charleston into the small hours and consuming vast amounts of chicken tikka misala. Such local tales, of course, have to be treated with the utmost caution, though one would find such to be historically accurate with the exception of the chicken tikka masala. It would almost have certainly have been a light korma.

Hart’s stay in Paignton must have been recuperative. He regularly attended the local writers circle, or so it is thought, though he left once halfway through a workshop because he could think of nothing to rhyme with ‘Dartmouth Steam Railway’. His biographers explain that he had seen magic in the area, in the sun rising above the pier, in the calm waters of the harbour, the bingo halls, the bins out the back of Tesco’s. After a while, the lure of New York must have seemed like the hint of a timeless other world : who needed the subway when it was just as easy to ride the Number 12 to Newton Abbott? What was the point of the Empire State Building when Paignton had its Woolworth’s? Who needed the Big Apple when Paignton was his very own small, shrivelled prune? Perhaps it is in such a form of mind that Hart sat down one midsummer’s night in the Haddock’s Halt and, ignoring the sound of skateboarders in the street below, wrote the first draft of the song that would later become ‘Manhattan’.

And here it is in all its raw poetry. One has to remember that the final wording was not yet decided on, but I think you will recognise, underneath, the song we all know and love today :

Summer journeys to South Devon
and to other places aggravate all our cares
We’ll save our dayrider tickets.

I’ve a little guest house in
what is known as old Torbay Road
We’ll settle down
Right here in town.

We’ll have Paignton beach
Foxhole and Goodrington too.
It’s lovely going through
Hellevoetslus Way!

It’s very cool and neat
on Victoria Street you know.
The number 12 bus charms us so
When cool sea breezes blow
As far as the co-op.

And tell me what street
compares with Winner Street
In July?
Sweets and crisp packets gently gliding
by.

The great big town is a wondrous toy
Though occasionally it might annoy.
We’ll turn Paignton pier
Into a Wetherspoons.

We’ll go to Hookhills
Where they all look ill
Or just weird.
And starve together dear
in KFC.
We’ll go to Broadsands
and eat a pasty or a roll
In Victoria Park we’ll stroll
Where our first wallet we stole
and we were mugged.

And EastEnders
Is a terrific soap they say
We both may see one of the characters smile
some day.

Paignton’s glamour may never spoil
Though in Winner Street, tempers come to the boil.
Yet I quite like it.
It’s handy for the shops.

A good gig!

I had a good gig on Wednesday night. In fact it was as good as it gets, because of several reasons. The first reason was that I practised really hard, memorised everything that I would say, and when it came to it, I didn’t forget a single thing. The second reason was that the audience was fantastic. The third reason was that the structure and the dynamic of the evening was perfect: a young audience, some of whom had trendy beards, and the fact that I was the middle poet, after a serious but incredibly good opening act, and before the main headliner. The fourth reason, and the most important one for me, was that several friends came along and I wasn’t naff, and that my publisher, too, was there.
Not being naff is the biggest contributory factor to a successful performance. I felt at ease with the material and with the props that I would be using. I started by dancing and saying, ‘I don’t know why, but I’m feeling really frisky tonight’. I then did a little dance. I don’t normally do a little dance, but the time just seemed right. This kind of set the whole thing up, and the audience were incredibly up for having a bit of a laugh. I think it helped that the person before me had been brilliant, but deeply serious and very poetic. I was the complete opposite. I ended the evening by dedicating this ‘car crash of a set’ to the memory of Victoria Wood.
So that was the gig, and it just went so smoothly. However, the feeling afterwards was one of mild euphoria mixed with the impression that perhaps every night should be like this. A young, youthful audience in a town where I don’t perform that often, and the feeling of being surrounded by friends. The best bit has to be the moment where I was chatting to my publisher, and someone came up to buy a book. At least that showed him that it was worth him publishing me!
The euphoria lasted all the way home, which was a long way, a two hour drive back to Paignton. There’s nothing better than the sense of a night coming together really well. As the lights of Bristol faded in the rear view mirror, we sped along the motorway passing sleeping towns, strange clusters of road lights and an empty motorway, the sort of place haunted by jobbing comedians and long distance lorry drivers, insomniacs, the perennially lost. I slept well and I was on a bit of a high the next day, until about lunch time.
That’s when the thought starts creeping in: Just what’s been going wrong at all the other gigs?

I have no idea why I’m apparently so popular in Brazil.

Hello Brazil.
I’m writing this because something unusual is happening, and extraordinary high amount of people who look at my website who come from Brazil. I’m quite pleased with this, because Brazil is a country which I know almost nothing about except for the fact that Ayrton Senna came from there. Another reason I like this is that the Pet Shop Boys are big in Brazil. So maybe we could tour together sometime. I mean, you never know.
Now I’m aware that there could be an error, of sorts. Perhaps it’s just one person in Brazil who looks at my website several times a day because he really likes whimsy. Perhaps I’ve got a friend who’s on holiday there. Perhaps there’s a mechanical breakdown which means that most of the people who look at my website automatically get registered as having done so in Brazil, and not Basingstoke. Whatever’s happening, I’m not complaining, because at least it means that someone is looking at my website.
But it allows me to daydream. Of a hidden fan base, and invitations to perform somewhere really exotic, like Manaus, in fact I’ve already written a poem where this happens. I try to imagine my book becoming incredibly successful there, and I’m asked to go on Brazilian tv and be genial and humorous while the translator does her work. I daydream of becoming a household name in Brazil.
I know that none of these will happen. But it’s good to daydream, and enjoy the moment while it lasts.
A POETRY GIG IN THE AMAZON BASIN
Thick dense jungle vegetation.
A circle of audience members in a hut by a swamp

By the banks of the mighty Amazon,

Peering at me, nervously, I approach

A microphone which buzzes, or maybe it’s the

Mosquitoes,

wondering how I ended up here,

And whether to do my famous poem about Lidls.
Thirteen hours by plane from Heathrow, six hours

By internal flight to Manaus, seventeen hours

By pick-up truck then a boat ride followed by

Six hours trek through jungle vegetation led by

A man in a hat with a machete, to this place,

A hut near a mining settlement, only to be

Greeted by puzzled frowns, there’s been a

Booking mix up, they were expecting Pam Ayres.
Preliminary chit chat to break the ice.

Isn’t it annoying, I tell them, when you’re baking a Soufflé,

and it doesn’t rise properly?

The rainy season floods took my house away, someone

Helpfully pipes up, I decide not to perform

My new poem about temperamental vacuum cleaners.

I decide on a joke.

‘I hear you have electric eels here

In these parts’, I tell them, ‘I’ve heard about them,

they  Sound shocking’.
In the silence that follows I hear the

Distant hooting of parrots.

The relentless humidity causes beads of sweat

To roll down my face like the last lingering hopes

I once had that this would be a good gig,

Having taken with me through the jungle, on the back of

A mule which complained most vociferously all the way,

Twenty copies of my book titled

‘101 Things Not To Do At Junction 13 Of The M25’,

plus the sudden realization

They my fee of sixty quid probably wouldn’t cover

The four days of travel from Basingstoke to here.

Headlining next month, apparently,

Is Kate Tempest.
Distant thunder rumbles.

Fat lazy drops fall from the sky

Falling on fleshy leaves like polite theatre applause.

I make a final effort to tell them some half-baked

Anecdote about a wellie-throwing contest at the annual

Village fete in suburban Surrey where I grew up, only

For the audience to respond with a smattering of applause,

Possibly glad of this sudden exotic interlude into my set,

The chance to learn about a different, strange culture.

The next act after me does some

Urban street dancing, and the audience loves

Every second,

It’s always difficult going on first.

Why I’m no longer going to compete in slams. Possibly. Well. Maybe just one or two more.

Last night I was at Hammer and Tongue in Brighton, supporting The Antipoet, and I had a great time in front of an enthusiastic audience. It was the first time that I’d performed in Brighton, and everyone made me feel very welcome.

One element of the evening, and a large part of the night, was the slam competition. Naturally, I wasn’t in it, because I was already on the bill. And in any case, I had made a solemn declaration to myself never to enter any more slams.

Why is this? I think it’s because I have recently started to realise that slam competitions do not show off the best of spoken word. A three minute crowd-pleasing rant is very entertaining and skilful and often performed incredibly well, but does this translate to a twenty minute set? How can an artist keep up with the energy of such a piece over a longer period? And is there a risk that in a slam situation, everyone seems to act more or less the same?

This is what I was thinking last night. I’d come up with a solution, in my mind, of a slam competition in which the poet gets ten minutes to do a selection of poems, of varying styles and topics, so that the audience can get a better sense of who they are and what they have to say about the world. I’ve had great fun in the past with slams, doing my finest comedy poems which I have practised, but these are only a part of my overall oeuvre.

I know that a slam competition is a very definite art form and a very specialised event. Slam poetry is a style, like jazz or hip hop. The idea I propose of something longer is more of a spoken word pilot show, a chance for an audience to judge, in a playful manner, a longer set. And people would still play to the crowd, no doubt. More skills would come to the forefront, such as props and movement, which are usually frowned on in slam circles.

Anyway, that’s my idea.

But then last night, the slammers were excellent and varied. There was a young lady who did a Kate Tempest-esque piece which was mesmerising, and there were one or two comedy poets who used the language of stand up and mime. In fact, every poet had their own style and method, which made it all the more enjoyable.

Which kind of leaves me in two minds. Should I forego competing in slams? I’ve had great fun in the past and won prizes here and there, and the exposure is great. Maybe I shall do one more. Just one more little slam somewhere, and see how I feel about it. I mean, what harm can it do? When introducing me last night, Sally Jenkinson told the audience about the first time she had seen me, which was at the Bristol Slam. If I hadn’t competed there and done quite well, then she would never have known me from Adam.

So yes. Maybe one more. One more little slam, and then no more.

Although, I’d like to do the Bristol one again . . .

An elegy for Woking

I had a great time last night appearing in Woking at the Light Box. It’s the first time that I’ve performed there and the audience was amazingly attentive and receptive. Which is to say that they all laughed in the right places.

Woking has long been one of my favourite towns, not least because it is the headquarters of the McLaren formula one team. But also because my sister lives here. When people go on holiday to all these exotic places, invariably, I go to Woking.

Woking has taken a lot of stick over the years because there’s nothing there except for shops and coffee shops. This kind of overlooks the fact that it has some very fine shops and some very fine coffee shops. Often I go wandering among the shops and the coffee shops, eulogising the wonderful choice and array of shops and coffee shops.

It also has a very good library. The library is air conditioned, and when I’m up there in the summer, and the Surrey heat flows in from the surrounding forests, I sit in the library and write. This in itself is nothing special, except that my friend and poetry colleague Ian Beech used to work at Woking Library. Indeed, the coincidence deepens because Beechy used to play cricket for the pub where I stay whenever I’m in town.

It’s solidly commuter belt, Woking. The audience at the gig was the least diverse I’ve ever seen. Once everyone commutes off to London in the morning, the place gets a little sleepy, which means there’s plenty of time to look around the shops and the coffee shops. And the forests, which are not so far away, the deep dark woods where HG Wells set War of the Worlds. Woking is the only place I know where the statue in the town centre is of an alien.

And there’s another reason why I like Woking so much. About ten years ago, I happened to see Paul Weller on his moped, which was decorated with images from his album covers. And he almost ran me over, because I was standing there kind of gawping. You see, Woking really is the city of dreams.

So that’s why I enjoyed performing there so much the other night. It really is one of my favourite places!