16/10/2022
Ludgershall Comedy Club, 13 October 2022
It’s been a couple of years since I last reported from a New Variety Lives show at Ludgershall and now, one pandemic later, I’m back at the Memorial Hall, which, according to the stone outside, was built in 1923 and extended in 1981. Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire (there’s a Ludgershall in Wiltshire too, which is a considerably larger settlement) is more or less between Bicester and Aylesbury. The theologian, John Wyclif, who translated the Bible from Latin into English, is probably the village’s most famous former resident. He was the vicar of St Mary the Virgin Church from 1368 to 1374 and is reported to have begun his translation of the Bible in a room above what is now the church’s porch.
The last time I was here, I bemoaned the poor mobile phone signal. This time, I managed to blag the village hall Wi-Fi password. Hooray!
We’ve got some Two-Tone sounds to welcome the punters in. The sounds of the Specials, Madness, The Beat, the Bodysnatchers and even the Apollinaires, who weren’t actually a ska band and were more of a post-punk soul and funk band, fill the air. By the way, I still have my 7-inch vinyl single of the Apollinaires’ ‘The Feeling’s Gone’.
There’s also a polypin of ale on the bar, which Roland reliably informs me is a locally produced beer. It’s a very tasty IPA, well-hopped with an aftertaste that reminds me of Rowntree’s fruit pastilles.
Roland is MC and he’s wearing a shirt that reminds me of one that I was wearing two days earlier. He tells the audience a few jokes about the village and the surrounding area and takes aim at the ‘war criminal’ who’s living nearby. The audience knows who it is and so do I. It’s Tony Blair, now a newly-minted knight of the realm and millionaire property owner. Labour, eh? Many people ask where he got his millions from when the PM’s salary was around £170,000 per annum. When Blair stepped down and left parliament, he was snapped up by investment bankers, JP Morgan Chase in 2008. Nice work if you can get it. Blair also owns a house on Connaught Square, which has a permanent police presence outside. He’s currently rumoured to be worth £100 million (including assets). In 2021, he was listed in the Panama Papers.
Enough of that.
The first act up is Mark Flynn, who appeared at the Brill Festival back in August. His style is laconic and somewhat deadpan and, I probably said this at the time, he has a touch of the Hancocks about him. Much of Flynn’s set involves trading on his size, which he subverts magnificently. He’s followed by the cheery and confident new act, Roman Harris, who placed in the last NATYS. He expresses his concern over sharing his name with someone else, someone who’s been disgraced. Do you know who it is yet? He meditates on such things on being a former firefighter, rail travel, driving Ubers for a living and childminding. Go and see him!
Meryl O’Rourke follows the interval. I haven’t seen her for probably 25 years, and she’s evolved into quite a fascinating and engaging act. She has a self-deprecating, gossipy style that is laced with a bit of s**t. O’Rourke dishes the dirt on the new and gormless, Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who seems to have slept her way to the top job. It’s worth mentioning that Truss had an affair with former Tory MP, Mark Field (which destroyed his marriage) and is rumoured to have been sleeping with Kwasi Kwarteng, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and next-door neighbour for a few weeks.
There’s another interval before the final act, Jeff Innocent, who I used to see listed in Time Out, but with whom I never appeared on the same bill. The comedy circuit is like that: you often find yourself appearing on the same bills with the same acts. In my case, I often appeared on the same bills as Lee Evans. Worried promoters would often come up to me and say, “Lee hasn’t arrived yet, I may have to put you on instead”. Evans had a reputation for this kind of thing. Then, out of nowhere, Evans would suddenly rush through the door like a whirlwind and go straight on stage. Like me, Innocent has a connection to the University of East London, and he makes a great joke about this. He plays on his Cockney working-class hard geezer appearance, but this is subverted by some clever word play. Indeed, Innocent’s entire routine is a long riff on his Cockney background. He also admits to being half-Jewish, which again subverts the whole East London skinhead/hard man appearance. He’s a clever act who defies assumptions and destroys audience expectations.
That’s all for now. The next show is 15 December.
