Tag: Brian Jordan

NewsRevue 40th Anniversary Party, Show & Smoker, Canal Cafe Theatre, 18 August 2019

NewsRevue is the world’s longest running live comedy show. It has been running since 18 August 1979. That is a Guinness World Record. If you don’t believe me, click here and read it on the official Guinness World Records site.

I have been involved with the show since 1992, as reported on Ogblog in many postings, not least this one which records my first performed offering – click here or below:

California Here I Go, NewsRevue Lyric, 23 April 1992

I formed many friendships over the years I wrote for NewsRevue (most of the rest of the 1990s). Many of us keep in touch through Ivan Shakespeare dinners, many of which are written up on Ogblog, including this one:

Ultimate Love and Happy Tories, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 3 March 2017

Mike Hodd (see headline picture) is one of the founders of the show, was a mainstay at our writers meetings in the 1990s and is a fairly regular attendee at Ivan Shakespeare dinners.

For some reason, Mike roped me into liaising with Emma and Shannon at the Canal Cafe to help pull together the 40th anniversary event.

I take very little credit for the superb evening that ensued, but I did contribute some archival material and I did stitch up some NewsRevue alums by gathering names and serial numbers through the e-mail connections.

I also suggested that the event include a smoker, in line with a tradition we had back in the 1990s of having after show parties at which we performed party pieces. Mike particularly liked that idea so it simply had to happen.

But the organisation of the event was really down to Emma, Shannon and the team who did a cracking job.

First up was a pre show drinks reception, at which some of us (encouraged to dress up), looked like this:

Barry Grossman, Colin Stutt and Me.

Then we watched the current show. An excellent troupe comprising Dorothea Jones, Brendan Mageean, Gabrielle De Saumarez and Rhys Tees under Tim MacArthur’s directorship.

Before the smoker, Shannon and the team played us a wonderful 40th anniversary video compilation of pictures and video clips from across the decades. Here is that very vid:

I was proud to have supplied some of the clippings contained therein and moved to see the video and ponder on just what 40 years of a show really means.

Then the smoker. I was really delighted that current/recent cast and crew joined in the idea and chipped in with their own party pieces, which were very entertaining.

From our own “Class of ’92, there were several contributions, captured pictorially by Graham Robertson, with thanks to him for the following pics.

Mike Hodd made two excellent contributions to the smoker;

  • a very amusing stand up set in which he somehow managed to extract humour from Parkinson’s disease. I shall never again be able to dissociate in my mind the film Fatal Attraction from the affliction fecal impaction;
  • a slow build routine in which he was an auctioneer trying to fob off some utter tat as masterpieces. Great fun.
Gerry Goddin

Gerry Goddin performed an audience participation routine in which we joined in a song about “mutton dressed as lamb” to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown. Gerry dealt with my heckling so masterfully that some people thought the heckles had been planted; they had not.

Barry Grossman

Barry performed a stand up comedy routine with masterful poise. I thought we were all supposed to be writers who cannot perform.

I wanted to celebrate one of my classic songs from 1992; the second of mine to be performed in the show but a perennial:

You Can’t Hurry Trusts, NewsRevue Lyric, 7 May 1992
My solo rendition of You Can’t Hurry Trusts

Chris Stanton was the performer who made my debut contributions to NewsRevue such a success in 1992. He too was at this party and performed a couple of classics brilliantly well; A Loan Again and also John Random’s classic 0898 song. No photo of the Chris’s performance as yet – unless Graham finds one of those amongst his collection.

Jonny Hurst also celebrated John Random’s ouevre with a rendition of the wonderful “Tell Laura A Liver”.

This was in part done to honour John Random’s recent selfless act to donate a kidney out of pure altruism to an anonymous recipient. To complete the honouring of that extraordinary good deed, Jonny and I jointly segued the liver song into a visceral medley including a specific piece we put together to honour John’s donation:

 WHO DO YOU THINK GOT YOUR KIDNEY, MR RANDOM?

(Lyric to the Tune of “Who Do You think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?”)
 

THE MAIN REFRAIN
 
Who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Since your organ donation?
Was it a girl for to stop her renal pain?
Was it a boy who can take the piss again?
So who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Now that you’ve gone down to one?
 
FIRST MIDDLE EIGHT

Mr Burns – he came to town
The age of twenty-one
He did assume a nom de plume
And took the name Random.
 
FIRST REPRISE
 
So who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Now that you’ve gone down to one?
 
SECOND MIDDLE EIGHT

Mr Burns did not return
With kidney number one
But kept his sense of humour…
(pause)
…And is ready with his pun.
 
SECOND REPRISE
 
So who do you think got your kidney, Mr Random?
Now that you’ve gone down to one?
 

It was a great party, it was a terrific show and it was a superb smoker. A truly memorable event to celebrate 40 years of a wonderful show.

As John Random said in his preamble to the smoker, NewsRevue has initiated so many careers and transformed so many lives over those decades. And for those of us who have formed enduring friendships, it is hard to express our gratitude to Mike Hodd and those who have kept the NewsRevue torch burning week in week out for forty years and counting.

A Marcus Evening But Not A Family Gathering, De Hems Dutch Café Bar, 7 February 2019

I have no idea why people think I would be a useful member of a quiz team. Perhaps it is because I am so intelligent and witty and knowledgeable about the topics I am willing to discuss.

It doesn’t seem to occur to people that top notch quizzers aren’t very much like me at all – or rather the selection of topics that top notch quizzers are knowledgeable about don’t overlap much with my topics of interest.

Anyway, every so often I get asked…

…once…

…but on the occasions I have said yes, I cannot recall ever being asked back…

…and very often I say no. In fact, unless the event or companionship pleases me, I say no.

On this occasion, Jasmine Birtles asked me to join her, Brian Jordan, John Random and others. I have known those three since the early 1990s, through NewsRevue – here’s but one write up of a fairly recent regathering, including a picture of Jasmine and John.

An Amazing Week Of Grazing And Moral Mazing, 1 to 7 December 2017

Brian Jordan I hadn’t seen for a very long time. While John Random was the first NewsRevue director to use my material:

You Can’t Hurry Trusts, NewsRevue Lyric, 7 May 1992

…Brian Jordan was the first performer to take my material to Edinburgh, in his gloriously-named show : Whoops Vicar is That Your Dick? (Sadly, you couldn’t get away with that title today):

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

Anyway, my point is, I was keen to meet up with this charming crowd as long as Jasmine recognised that I am not the quizzer she might have been hoping for. So when she asked me to join her MoneyMagpie team, I replied:

How could I possibly say no to that? But surely we have better general knowledge quizzers than me in our orbit?
Still, it would be lovely to join you and your team if I’m as good as it gets.

Hence, I ended up in De Hems Dutch Cafe Bar in Soho on a cold February evening as a guest of Marcus: By Goldman Sachs via MoneyMagpie.

In fact, I arrived in Soho a little early, so took a stroll down Chinatown memory lane at New Year time for a few minutes before entering De Hems.

It was great to see Brian Jordan again after all these years and it is always a treat to spend time with John and Jasmine. Also on our team were Susan and Annie, who were also delightful company, as was Annie’s son (who works for Marcus) and Tony Elliott who was our Marcus host on our table.

As usual, nothing that I really know about came up. No theatre, no early music, no sixties and seventies popular music, no cricket, no real tennis…

…what’s the matter with these quizzes?

On the few occasions I could answer a question with authority, at least one other person if not several others on the team knew the answer.

So I opted for the role of team cheerleader, to try and maintain the concentration and positive energy of my teammates. I also acted as the runner to take our answer sheets in – a role I tried to perform with as much gusto as my aching body could muster.

In the former matter, I (and indeed the team) was only moderately successful – we came fourth out of seven teams.

Somewhere on my bookshelves is a so-called humorous book from the 1980s called The Mackeson Book Of Averages – which was an alternative, stout antidote to the Guinness Book Of World Records. It is a very ordinary book. But if there is ever an update to the Mackeson Book Of Averages, perhaps The MonyMagpies team result in this pub quiz should be recorded in that book. That would enable me, Brian, Jasmine and John to add to our stupendous Guinness World Record via NewsRevue, plus my other Guinness World Record via Goodenough College.

But I digress.

In the matter of my role as team runner, I was awarded an MVP award (MVP normally means most valuable player, but in my case it was presumably most volatile player) – in the form of a bottle of Prosecco, which I proudly displayed in my trophy cabinet for about 2 minutes (long enough to photograph it):

…before handing it over to Janie for a more suitable purpose (drinking).

I think that Janie thinks that I won the bottle of bubbly for quizzing, so please, readers, do not disabuse her of that belief.

And talking of abuse, Jasmine reminded me that she wrote The Little Book Of Abuse some years ago, which is a bit of a coincidence because I had spent the preceding Tuesday evening with Rohan Candappa and others, also doing silly things in a room above a pub:

The Rohan Thing, My Short Performance Piece As Part Of Rohan Candappa’s Inaugural Threadmash, Gladstone Arms, 5 February 2019

…and of course Rohan is the author of The Little Book Of Stress. I think Janie’s waiting area needs copies of both of those books…

…while the surgery itself is of course, in book terms, dedicated to The Price Of Fish.

On that final subject, I did a very clever deal with Tony Elliott of Goldman Sachs, who offered to buy a copy of The Price Of Fish if I, in turn, shovelled thousands of poundsworth of savings towards Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Good deal makers, these Goldman Sachs people – who knew?

Anyway, I shall not be using “mother’s maiden name?” as one of my security questions.

In short, the food, the wine, the company and the event were all top notch and most enjoyable. Our team’s quizzing though? Very average.

Ultimate Love and Happy Tories, Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner, Café Rouge Holborn, 3 March 2017

NewsRevue’s 2004 Guinness World Record for being the World’s Longest Running Live Comedy Show – Gerry Goddin far left, Barry Grossman back left, a wide-eyed me front right

NewsRevue goes back all the way to 1979. When the show turned 25, in 2004, it was awarded the Guinness World Record for being the World’s Longest Running Live Comedy Show. I was there. I’d been there since 1992. This year my involvement with the show turns 25.

Those of us who wrote for the show in the 1990s still gather a few times a year for Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinners.

Earlier this week, coincidentally, I played real tennis with Chris Stanton (another NewsRevue alum, in his case a performer) at Lord’s. Chris was reminiscing with me about the show, not least because he was rummaging through his old files and found many complete runs of scripts from “our era”, which he was planning to shred. I think John Random might rescue them for posterity.

Chris then gave me a pretty-much word perfect rendering of Brian Jordan’s wonderful Arthur Scargill song, to the tune of My Guy. As John Random later reminisced:

He may not be to everyone’s liking/But as a union leader, he’s striking.

Hearing about Brian Jordan reminded me of my first big hit; The Ultimate Love Song, which Brian made his own for a while and took to Edinburgh (my material’s debut there) in his show “Whoops Vicar Is That Your Dick?”  I am so proud to have had my Edinburgh debut in a show with that name.

After seeing Chris, I looked at my file and realised that The Ultimate Love Song turns 25 this week; I copyrighted it 29 February 1992…so perhaps it turns six-and-a-quarter. Anyway, it seemed right to mention it at the Ivan Shakespeare and I was badgered into giving a quick rendering, as much as I could remember.

I have now upped The Ultimate Love Song in its entirety – together with the tale of its early use – here’s the link again.

Here is a link to Ben Murphy’s rendering of The Ultimate Love Song from 1993.

Mark Keagan was at the Ivan Shakespeare dinner; he’s one of the more regular attendees. He mentioned that his father-in-law and former home secretary, David Waddington, sadly passed away last week. Which reminded me that I did once write a song with a verse about Waddington; again nearly 25 years ago. We all (Mark included) agreed that the song might come in handy for him over the coming weeks…well you never know…so I have upped that one too. Happy Tories it is called – also about Maggie Thatcher and Chris Patten – click here.

Below is a picture of John Random and Mark Keagan from the previous Ivan Shakespeare dinner.

Mark was awarded the 2016 trophy, but should he have been? Rumour has it that John might have been handed the wrong envelope…

Gerry Goddin and John both produced quizzes. Gerry’s was infernal as usual; I did well at first but tailed off at the end, letting Barry Grossman take the honours at the line. John’s was suitably silly and superficial for my mood – a small collection of “shock and awe” pun headlines to unfathom. Perhaps naturally, I won that quiz.

As always it was good to see the gang – a slightly depleted gathering this time but at least when that happens you get a chance to have a proper chat with everyone.

The Orange Penguin by John Random, Risk Theatre, 30 July 1993

This period of 1993 was “peak Random”, with John perennially, heavily involved in NewsRevue (where he helped to get my comedy writing career going the year before) and also his show Sex In My Anorak, which had played in June.

Sex In My Anorak by John Random & Others (Including Me), Opening Night, Canal Cafe Theatre, 2 June 1993

Then, just a few weeks after “Sex”, a London production of John’s play from the previous year’s Edinburgh Festival, The Orange Penguin.

It had been well received, at least by The Independent it had – click here…

…or if that page goes walkies, try this scrape.

The theatre was a sort-of public hall in Hoxton, near to Annie Bickerstaff’s place. Janie and I went to see this play along with Annalisa and Annie. We all very much enjoyed the play. I think we ended up back at Annie’s place for dinner after the show.

It was my first ever sighting of Brian Jordan, who was known to me because he had taken The Ultimate Love Song to Edinburgh in his show Whoops Vicar, Is That Your Dick? at the same time that John took The Orange Penguin (with Iain Angus Wilkie in the lead).

Anyway, it was a very good evening, our evening in Hoxton seeing The Orange Penguin.

I wonder whether John still has the script and whether he thinks it might be time for a revival?

Comedy In The Zone, An Unintentional Sketch In Earls Court, Then Canal Cafe Theatre For Swing Low Sweet Testicles by Noel Christopher, Then NewsRevue Christmas Run, 17 December 1992

I was reminded of this day in conversation with John Random in February 2021. I have just received a bundle of scripts and ephemera from Erica Stanton, Chris Stanton’s widow, including materials pertaining to the show, Swing Low Sweet Testicles.

John reflected on the show and mentioned a diary note about promoting the show on 15 December. I remembered seeing the show at that time, checked my diary and discovered that I saw the show on 17 December.

Below is the B-Side of the flyer for that show. The reviews must relate to an earlier Noel Christopher extravaganza, known simply as The Show, scripts for which also arrived in Erica’s bundle.

Swing Low Sweet Testicles itself mustered at least one decent review:

Can’t imagine where City Limits got that date range from – it ran from December 9th 1992 to January 17th 1993.

The cast and crew were NewsRevue stalwarts and most had been somewhat involved in my early successes with that mob.

Brian Jordan, who directed “Testicles“, had debuted my material at Edinburgh that summer, with The Ultimate Love Song in his show Whoops Vicar Is That Your Dick? He was partial to a good nob title, was Brian.

Even earlier in my so-called writing career, the late great Chris Stanton had been the first professional performer to tread the boards with one of my lyrics.

I don’t think that Cliff Kelly had yet overlapped with my material in NewsRevue, but I might be mistaken.

Chloe Lucas had done a magnificent job of belting my Coal Digger song in the Autumn NewsRevue run preceding Swing Low Sweet Testicles. I’m pretty sure that the Coal Digger song, along with a couple of my others, was in the Christmas run of NewsRevue which I saw (for a second time) after Testicles.

Anyway, I rather enjoyed Swing Low Sweet Testicles. I was partial to Noel’s writing and was glad of the opportunity to see some of his less-topical, more-enduring material.

Below is the programme for the NewsRevue show that night, which I stayed on to see for a second time, having seen the opening night on 26 November.

Earlier That Day…Getting Into The Zone

My diary also records a memorable working day. Memorable for inadvertent, comedic reasons.

I was working as a management consultant for Binder Hamlyn at that time. On that day, I accompanied the National VAT Partner, Alan Buckett, to visit a large European Manufacturing Group, whose UK headquarters were out on the M4 corridor, to help them get their heads around something or other.

We were done with that by lunchtime and Alan suggested stopping for a bite to eat in Earls Court – a convenient stop on the way back to the City for him and a short hop to home for me, as I had an early-evening engagement with Testicles and didn’t want to go back to the City.

Alan parked his car and we walked down the Earls Court Road, in search of a wine bar/restaurant someone had recommended to him.

Ah, there it is…

…said Alan, striding towards the place he had been aiming towards.

But instead of walking down the stairs to, as I could see it, the entrance to the wine bar in question, Alan marched up the stairs and into…

Clonezone. I believe it is accurate to describe that particular store as a Gay fetishist fashion emporium.

35 Years Of Clonezone

I tried to stop him, but Alan had his stomp on and disappeared into the shop.

I waited outside for what seemed ages but was probably only a few seconds.

The tall, besuited Alan, who normally looked every inch a City gent, retreated from Clonezone rather sheepishly.

I smiled.

Alan and I went into the wine bar restaurant for a light lunch and a debrief.

Towards the end of the lunch, Alan said,

When you get back to the office, I’d just prefer it if you didn’t mention…

…I said that his Clonezone secret was safe with me. Alan is long-since retired now and I’m pretty sure, if he remembers the story at all, it’d be the funny side of it that has stuck in his mind.

Alan might well have shocked the clones within as much as they (and the place) shocked him.

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

I think a basic version of this song might have sat on my jotter for years before I typed it up and tried to do something with it, but I copyrighted it 29 February 1992.

That makes the lyric proper 25 years old this week (at the time of writing), unless you are really pedantic about dates, in which case it is six-and-a-quarter. I was reminded of it, coincidentally, during its anniversary week – click here for that story. 

Anyway, I think this one first saw the light of day in the hands of Brian Jordan, who found it in the NewsRevue reject pile (probably thanks to John Random) and took it to Edinburgh in 1992 in his show, “Whoops, Vicar, Is That Your Dick?”  So I can for ever boast that my material made its Edinburgh debut in a show by that glorious name.

Subsequently (and/or perhaps simultaneously), the song did NewsRevue runs and was also picked up by west country comedy-singer Ben Murphy for recording –  click here or below to hear.

Definitely one of my bigger hits. I can even thrash it out on my baritone uke, key change ‘n’all.

Click here or below for a link to the tune and lyrics: Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You by Glenn Medeiros.

THE ULTIMATE LOVE SONG

(To the tune of “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You”)

 

VERSE 1

Every little thing she does is magic, you will never walk alone, the winner takes it all;

I can’t give you anything but my love, together we are beautiful, it’s not unusual.

You to me are everything, I’d like to teach the world to sing;

Only you, love me do,

You don’t have to say you love me.

 

CHORUS 1

Nothing’s gonna change the way I sound,

Just take another song and swop the words round;

One thing you can be sure of,

This is a sound you’ll hear some more of.

Nothing’s gonna change the way I croon,

There isn’t too much scope with only one tune;

You can wait your whole life through

But nothing’s gonna change the songs I do.

 

VERSE 2

You’re the first, the last my everything, with you I am born again, more than I can say;

You won’t find another fool like me dear, I can’t give you anything, one day I’ll fly away.

When will I see you again? you know that you have got a friend;

She’s not there, I’ll be there,

I don’t want to talk about it.

 

CHORUS 2

Nothing’s gonna change the songs I sing,

Just churn another out and hear the tills ring;

How come I’ve made my fortune,

When I have only written one tune.

Nothing’s gonna change the way I chant,

I sorta tried it once but found that I can’t;

This style’s the one for me,

The only thing I change is key (rising to higher key, slightly beyond ability of crooner)

Nothing’s gonna change my serenade,

Despite the fact it sounds as if I’ve been spayed;

I’ve made a pile this way,

So I’m afraid this song is here to stay.

A Political Rally With Death Threats: Arthur, The Miner’s Strike & Keele, 22 September 1984

Arthur Scargill, Pit Closure Rally, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums

While the Keele Students’ Union bars saga was the largest internal issue that subsisted for the first six months of our sabbatical year 1984/85…

When The Keele Students’ Union Bars (aka Tommy And Ralph) Saga Came To A Head, Early August 1984

…the 1984-85 miners’ strike was far and away the biggest UK political/news story of that time.

The dispute had been running for some six months before this day, in September 1984, when Arthur Scargill held a rally outside the pit in Silverdale, which might be described as “Keele’s local” in the matter of coal pits back then. Indeed I think it was that pit that did for my first Barnes flat, in M block, which needed to be demolished in late 1982:

Switching To A Cracking Good Flat In Barnes, Keele, Mid February To Early March 1982

But I digress.

Here is a transcript of my diary note from the day that Arthur Scargill came to town:

Saturday, 22 September 1984 – Got up early. Went to Shelton – Kathy [North Staffs Poly, President? I think], Cath [Coughlin], Andy [Crawford] and I went to Rumours and on to Scargill [Arthur Scargill rally at a closing colliery]. Shopped in afternoon – visited Kevin [“the Guinness”?], Helen [Ross] etc. Went to Union in evening.

Obviously it was a big rally…a very, very big rally – in contrast with the comparatively small rallies (by his own standards) that Donald Trump holds in the USA these days (2024). Joking apart, there were several hundred of us who attended that 1984 Potteries event.

I discover, though, by delving into The Evening Sentinel archive, that Arthur Scargill 1984 did share something in common with Trump 2024: death threats. Indeed, had I known what I now learn from the Evening Sentinel 40 years later, I might have been a little reluctant to attend:

Scargill Rally 22 September 1984 SentinelScargill Rally 22 September 1984 Sentinel 22 Sep 1984, Sat Evening Sentinel (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) Newspapers.com

In truth I don’t remember a great deal about the rally. I wasn’t a political sabbatical, by which I mean that I wanted to focus on running the Union and my portfolio, Education and Welfare, rather than national or international events. But I do remember that sense of history and wanting to be there when the “show” came to our town.

Arthur Scargill was a charismatic speaker and certainly carried his crowd with him. Thatcher-bashing/Tory-bashing was low hanging fruit for speeches in places like the Potteries at that time. I do remember Scargill’s mantra:

There’s no such thing as an uneconomic pit…

…failing to pass my personal economics test at that time. It was clear to me even then that the coal industry was on its way out, for economic and environmental reasons. The issue, for me, was the way that the Tory Government was going about its industrial policy, like a bull in a China shop, for ideological reasons, rather than a measured, planned approach to industrial change, which might have been achieved with more net benefit and less resulting hardship.

But it wasn’t about me, it was about Arthur. Here’s a video of a similar speech to the one we would have heard at the end of our rally:

Mercifully there was no assassination attempt on Arthur Scargill at the event we attended nor, as far as I know, at any other event during those heady days in the mid 1980s.

But just a few year’s later, comedy writer and performer Brian Jordan …

…to whom I shall always be grateful for premiering my comedy material in Edinburgh, in his wonderfully-named show, Whoops Vicar Is that Your Dick…

The Ultimate Love Song, Whoops Vicar, NewsRevue, Ben Murphy…, 29 February 1992

…assassinated Arthur Scargill’s character in the following lyric which ran and ran in NewsRevue in the early 1990s, reproduced here with Brian’s kind permission. I especially like the couplet:

He may not be to everybody’s liking,

But as a union leader…he’s striking.

Anyway, the September 1984 rally was not to be the last of the Students’ Union’s involvement in the miners’ strike, as the issue found its way onto the UGM agenda several times during our year – on at least one occasion with quite incendiary results.

Ashley Fletcher will help me to pick up on that aspect of the story in the coming months, as he has been busy recently (2024) writing up his own memories of the miners’ strike.