…was just such a dash – to Annalisa de Mercur’s party.
I hope it was a good one. They usually were.
This one was on a Sunday, so I’m guessing it was lunch/afternoon into early evening that time.
Quite possibly it went on quite deep into the evening.
Janie’s diary suggests that we arrived back at heathrow at 11.05, so I suppose that did enable us to dump our luggage, wash and dash into Marylebone (probably via my place) to the party by early/mid afternoon.
There will have been bagels.
Annalisa usually served lots of mini bagels.
There will have been lots of people too – many of them former Keele folk.
This was probably the first time that Janie met many of the people there; Kate Fricker (probably) and Annie Bickerstaff (almost certainly). Were John and Mandy there on that occasion?
Postscript: John has chimed in by message witha confession that he and Mandy were there. But no additional information was forthcoming.
Janie wore the travelling trousers in those days. She bought a little guide book and scribbled some notes in it.
So from the photos and the guide book we have today (3 December 2017, 25 years later) tried to reconstruct our memories of this little trip.
We didn’t have enormous success with Janie’s hand-written list of eateries above:
Caffè Florian – we indulged ourselves with a coffee but not much more;
Trattoria Alla Madonna – we recall failing to get a booking there. Other trattorias are and were available – we did eat well in Venice, but not there;
Harry’s Bar – we had coffee, cake and a Bellini, because apparently that’s what you must do there;
Gritti Palace – mercifully the top restaurant was closed. I say mercifully, because even the coffee we had in the Gritti Palace bar was, as I described it in my photo caption, probably the most expensive cuppa in the world. We had also hoped to visit the Peggy Gugenheim in that part of town, but that was closed for a refurb at the time.
But, extraordinary as it might seem, we also went out of the room on several occasions and did a rather a lot around Venice, enjoying a mixture of sun and rain during our outings, as evidenced in the photos.
If the labelled, album stack of 26 photos (above) is insufficient for you, the entire library of our Venice photos, “uncut”, is also available – click below:
The photographic evidence and Janie’s markings in the book suggest we did a lot of the usual Venice things:
The Doges’ Palace;
St Mark’s Basilica;
The Frari;
Rialto Bridge;
The Ghetto (I recall seeing it and on one evening eating around there too);
Clock Tower;
Accademia? – not sure we got that far through the list;
Museum of 18th Century Venice? – not sure we got that far through the list either;
Murano – yes – we have photographic evidence of that one, and we still have a glass bowl in the bathroom from there, holding the cotton wool, apparently;
Scuola Grande Di San Rocco – again with evidence:
Also, of course, we wandered around a lot, looking at markets and trying to imagine Death In Venice (in my case) or Don’t Look Now (in Janie’s).
We had a great time. We decided we wanted to explore more places together afterwards, which is a happy ending…
…far more than can be said about the movies that were stuck in our heads.
Harry’s Bar – Don’t Look Now – Death By Chocolate in Venice
I blocked out five nights/six days in my diary for this trip but in the end we only went for three nights/four days and went stright on to Annalisa’s party on our return on the Sunday. It’s as if we spent our life in speeded up mode back then – in our relative dotage, we’d never try to fit anything like so much in.
In autumn 1992, I was still coming to terms with what worked and what didn’t work for NewsRevue. After all, I had only discovered the place that spring. It is part of the Bowden submission of January 1993 and I’m pretty sure it didn’t get used.
This lyric is not topical and really doesn’t belong in that show, although it might have done something in some other show – still might.
I quite like it, although on re-reading it all these years later (December 2016) I thought the lyric needed some work and that I might work up a variant for my baritone uke.
When I did so, with very minor changes (Spring 2017 – not reflected in the text below), Janie really liked it, finding it delightfully nasty.
“Were you really pissed off with someone or depressed when you wrote that?”, asked Janie.
“I don’t think so…I’d just started going out with you,” was my reply.
I felt very sorry for the cast trying to learn such a difficult song at such short notice for their opening night. But no subject is sacred in News Revue and I think this version may raise the odd smile.
This is a little dig at John Random for his zealous blacklist of certain songs. If you really want to annoy John, all you have to do is use songs like “Chattanooga”, “My Favourite Things”, “Maria”, “YMCA”……….
When Paula was directing the show, her cast very specifically commissioned this odious ditty. Paula then spiked it, saying it was too nasty for public consumption. However, in the privacy of our own News Revue party, I think the least that Jon and Paula can do to compensate me is to give the song one solitary performance before it is laid to rest.
Now that 0898 is personga non grata, perhaps Clive Gehle could use this song to entertain the crowds in his wonderful J Arthur Ranker character. This song was never performed, so will be new to most of the throng.
Well that’s it. I hope the party is a barrel of laughs. No doubt I shall hear about it afterwards. Meanwhile, I shall be telling all my friends how good the new show is, and shall come and see you all again before Christmas.
Times change. These days (he says writing in late 2019) Up The Creek Comedy Club is located in trendy Greenwich and is perceived as a happening place on the comedy scene.
Mark Ahsmann [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
So what in the name of common sense were Janie, me, Annalisa and Gerry Goddin doing going to that place on a Saturday night?
We went to see the west-country comedian Ben Murphy perform. Ben had recently engaged with some of us Newsrevue writers and had especially taken a shine to some of my lyrics, which he was proposing to try out at Up The Creek that night.
Here is a link to my first letter to Ben – only a week or so before the Up The Creek visit – a very business like and quite counter-cultural letter viz the Ben I subsequently got to know rather well. Perhaps that is why I tended to get paid by Ben, whereas some less commercially-minded writers are (I believe) still waiting for their royalty cheques.
Menawhile, back in November 1992, Janie and I actually moved an appointment to eat with Janie’s mum, plus twin-sister Phillipa and niece Charlotte, which was due to happen that evening. If my memory serves me correctly, we all went for a Chinese meal at North China on the Uxbridge Road at lunchtime the next day instead. I think that was the first time I met those three.
So, if I now point out that seeing my material, in the hands of Ben Murphy, doing battle with that seriously-arsy Deptford comedy crowd, was a far LESS daunting prospect than the thought of meeting Janie’s mum…
…but then you wouldn’t have tried mother-in-law/my girlfriend’s mother jokes at Up The Creek in 1992; that would not have ended well.
I do recall warning both Janie and Annalisa that it would be seriously risky for us to “take on the audience” if they turned against Ben. In those days, even Gerry Goddin was able to quell his instincts to chirp back in such circumstances, but I wasn’t so sure about the girls.
In the event, Ben went down pretty well at Up The Creek and we all survived the experience. Some acts that night were less fortunate than Ben…
…but then most of those acts were less naturally talented and less able to control an audience than Ben Murphy.
I have managed to find a video of Ben Murphy performing live, many years later, in less edgy circumstances – on that south-west coast circuit that he made his own for a long time:
I remember that Janie insisted on driving to Up The Creek and that we dropped Annalisa and Gerry home, as both of them, in those days, lived conveniently en route or near to Janie’s place.
Rummaging through my electronic filing cabinet, I found this little piece; unloved even to the extent that it had not even been catalogued back in the day.
I must have written it as an in joke for a NewsRevue smoker – we had a few of those “writers and performers parties” back then – perhaps to celebrate the opening of the Christmas run or the end of the run that preceded it.
So, he says, writing 25 years later, just ahead of the last Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner of 2017, here is a question for advanced students – name all of the people referred to in my lyric.
I’ll up the answers (and any outstanding questions) when I write up the dinner. I’m good for all-but two names myself.
Part of the in-joke must have been in the choice of song itself. Graham Robertson had rattled off a brilliant topical song the week before in response to the Windsor Castle fire: “One Didn’t Start The Fire”. I’m guessing that the cast had struggled to assimilate all of the wonderful, wordy lines of that song ahead of its first Thursday performance. If Graham is able to dig out that lyric – I’d love to up it here as guest piece.
1992 might have been an annus horribilis for the Queen and the royal family but it was an annus mirabilis for me and for NewsRevue.
Anyway here is my end of 1992 smoker lyric:
WE DIDN’T LEARN THE LINES
(To the tune of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”)
(Cast take the stage looking exuberant and full of confidence)
On the back of the material I was writing for the Canal Cafe, I chatted with Harold Davison at lunch the Sunday before this letter. He is Gary’s dad; I have known Gary for ages through DJ and Kim.
Anyway, Harold wanted to show a lyric of mine to Frank Sinatra and Sammy Cahn…and who was I to refuse?
Flat 4 12 Clanricarde Gardens London W2 4NA 71-243-0725
23 November 1992
Dear Harold,
I’VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
It was a pleasure to meet you at the Royal Garden last week. I found your comments on lyric writing and satire both interesting and helpful.
I have produced a parody of the above number, as requested. I hope it meets with your approval, and with that of Sinatra himself. I would be most interested to learn how it is received.
I must now away, to prepare myself for the Venice trip with my Chiropodist friend!
Not really our sort of thing, but Kim persuaded me and Janie to join her and Micky at Circus Space on the Caledonian Road.
Now (he says, writing in December 2019) known as the National Centre for Circus Arts and based in Hackney, this training organisation for circus skills has long raised funds by putting on shows for the public.
Kim was a fan and we went along to give it a look-see.
I’m not a fan of circuses, my main beef being to do with making caged animals perform. Kim has an even more profound animal rights thing than I do, so her choice of Circus Space reflected the fact that they do not (or at least did not) do any animal related stuff.
I remember coming away from the evening feeling that the performers were very accomplished and that they deserve a decent audience…
…but it only reinforced my view that circus-type performance isn;t really for me.
Janie barely remembers the evening at all – unusually for her when it comes to performance-related memories. I think the circus was a big turn-off for her.
Where are the clowns?……There ought to be clowns.
Oh well.
We’ll have had a nice meal and will have enjoyed the evening together despite the circus, I am sure.
Harold Davison was, by this time, taking some of my lyrics back to the states with him and showing them to his friends.
Harold told me that Frank Sinatra would enjoy a parody lyric to the tune “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, as that song was a personal favourite of Frank’s.
Never one to waste an opportunity to double or treble up, my mind turned to the recent Fergie & Johnny Byrne royal toe-sucking scandal and to the profession of my new squeeze, Janie, in the hope that the same song might strike NewsRevue gold.
It didn’t strike NewsRevue gold, although Janie really liked it.
Harold told me that Frank thought the lyric was funny, but I think that if Frank had actually sung it at a smoker or a party, Harold would have told me about it.
I’VE MUSHROOMS UNDER MY SKIN
(To the Tune of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”)
SPOKEN INTRO
This song is dedicated to all the unfortunate people out there whose health problem prevents them from enjoying the most trendy erotic pleasures. I mean of course, those blighted with the dreaded fungus, athletes foot.
VERSE 1
I’ve mushrooms under my skin,
I’ve mildew deep in the arch of feet;
So deep in my arch they really enlarge my feet,
I’ve mushrooms under my skin.
VERSE 2
You’ve got me on the Mycin,
You’ve got me deep in chiropody;
So deep is your cut it’s really podiatry,
You’ve got me on the Mycin.
MIDDLE BIT
I crave for a tender pedal caress,
From a former actress or ex Duchess;
For there’s love afoot with sensuousness,
When my mate,
Osculates,
On my toe.
CLIMAX
Even priests confess,
It isn’t a sin;
To want to bed you for,
An oral pedicure.
But each time you do,
The sight of mildew,
Makes you stop before you begin,
Cos I’ve mushrooms under my skin.
(And I like nudes under my shin.)
Here’s a vid of “Ole Blue Eyes” singing that Cole Porter song:
