Tag: Harriet Quirk

NewsRevue Plus VAT – Oy! – 12 October 1994 et. seq.

Seeing these documents made me laugh. In the first few weeks of establishing The Z/Yen Group, while we waited for incorporation documents to come through, we traded as me personally, then assigned the business to the corporation.

Rather unexpectedly, we sold so much business during those few weeks, I had to register for VAT in my own name for six months.

I wanted to make sure everything was above board, so I put absolutely all income through as VATable business, including my NewsRevue income.

I don’t suppose Harriet Quirk saw much in the way of writers’ VAT invoices, not that she really needed to do anything with them because it seems I sent them retrospectively on receipt of the dosh and just wore the VAT charge myself.

What a trooper.

Spot the royalty values going down in those early weeks/months of the new business – I guess I was concentrating on matters other than comedy too much.

INVOICE – FILE COPY
VAT REG NO GB 646 1995 04

FAO Harriet Quirk             Date: 12 October 1994
News Revue                        Tax point: 1 October 1994
Canal Cafe Theatre
Delamere Terrace
London
W2

INVOICE TO: News Revue
ACCOUNT REF: NR01
INVOICE NO: 02005
In respect of songs and sundry patter for the News Revue show (known as Edinburgh run) during August 1994.
£

ROYALTIES 45.96
VAT @ 17.5% 8.04

————-
TOTAL £54.00
========
This amount has been received, with thanks.

 

INVOICE – FILE COPY
VAT REG NO GB 646 1995 04

FAO Harriet Quirk                      Date: 24 October 1994
News Revue                                  Tax point: 24 October 1994
Canal Cafe Theatre
Delamere Terrace
London
W2

INVOICE TO: News Revue
ACCOUNT REF: NR01
INVOICE NO: 02006
In respect of songs and sundry patter for the News Revue show (known as Alex’s run) during early Autumn 1994.
£

ROYALTIES 32.34
VAT @ 17.5% 5.66

————-
TOTAL £38.00
========
This amount has been received, with thanks.

 

INVOICE – FILE COPY
VAT REG NO GB 646 1995 04

FAO Harriet Quirk                         Date: 21 November 1994
News Revue                                    Tax point: 21 November 1994
Canal Cafe Theatre
Delamere Terrace
London
W2

INVOICE TO: News Revue
ACCOUNT REF: NR01
INVOICE NO: 02007

In respect of songs and sundry patter for the News Revue show (known as Kerry’s run) during Autumn 1994.
£

ROYALTIES 43.58
VAT @ 17.5% 7.62

————-
TOTAL £51.20
========
This amount has been received, with thanks.

 

INVOICE – FILE COPY
VAT REG NO GB 646 1995 04

FAO Harriet Quirk                  Date: 9 January 1995
News Revue                             Tax point: 9 January 1995
Canal Cafe Theatre
Delamere Terrace
London
W2

INVOICE TO: News Revue
ACCOUNT REF: NR01
INVOICE NO: 02009

In respect of songs and sundry patter for the News Revue show (known as Robert’s run) end 1994.
£

ROYALTIES 15.49
VAT @ 17.5% 2.71

————-
TOTAL £18.20
========
This amount has been received, with thanks.

There was one more VAT invoice for NewsRevue in quarter one of 1995, before I deregistered from the VAT regime and never had to invoice NewsRevue again:

INVOICE – FILE COPY
VAT REG NO GB 646 1995 04

FAO Harriet Quirk                          Date: 14 March 1995
News Revue                                     Tax point: 14 March 1995
Canal Cafe Theatre
Delamere Terrace
London
W2

INVOICE TO: News Revue
ACCOUNT REF: NR01
INVOICE NO: 02011

In respect of songs and sundry patter for the News Revue show (known as Christmas run) end 1994 and early 1995.
£

ROYALTIES 9.60
VAT @ 17.5% 1.68

————-
TOTAL £11.28
========
This amount has been received, with thanks.

My Second Invoice For NewsRevue Stuff, 10 September 1994

When I left Binders and started Z/Yen, I traded as a sole trader for a couple of months while forming the group of companies and getting the corporate business ready to trade.

I was very careful to make sure that all of my self-employed income was properly invoiced and recorded at that time. Following consultattion with the tax authorities on the phone, we agreed that, for that short period of time, I couldn’t/shouldn’t try to separate my writer/media self from my business start-up self, so for a short while I invoiced my writing activities through Z/Yen and even (for some of the weeks) paid over VAT on the royalties.

This was the second of the invoices, raised on the same day as the first. The electronic version of the first seems to have become corrupted, but I shall probably be able to dig out a physical version of it and scan it up to Ogblog in the fullness of time.

I will have raised the invoice only after receiving the dosh, so Harriet will not have had to do anything with the invoice – I suspect she studied it for at least 5 seconds before deep filing it in the wastepaper basket. Harriet?

When printed out it looked like this – click here.

Z/Yen
                                                                                                                                  Ian Harris
12 Clanricarde Gardens
London W2 4NA
(071) 243-0725
E-mail:  zyenilh@zyenharri.win-uk.net

INVOICE – FILE COPY
                                                                           VAT REG NO GB 646 1995 04
 
FAO Harriet Quirk Date: 10 September 1994
News Revue                                                           Tax point: 1 August 1994
Canal Cafe Theatre
Delamere Terrace
London
W2

INVOICE TO:News Revue
ACCOUNT REF:NR01
INVOICE NO:02002
 
In respect of songs and sundry patter for the News Revue show (known as Di’s run) during the period 7 July to 31 July 1994.
 
 
                                                                                                                   £
 
ROYALTIES                                                                                                                     48.26
 
 
VAT  – NIL (tax point prior to VAT registration)                                                                         –
 
                                                                                                                                  ————-
TOTAL                                                                                                                           £48.26
                                                                                                                                     =====

Bish Bash Bosh, NewsRevue Spin Off In Willesden, Opening Night, 22 July 1993

I have written a short piece about Bish Bash Bosh when I uncovered my submission sheet for that show – no need to repeat myself – click here or below:

Bish Bash Bosh NewsRevue Submission, 20 June 1993

On 22 July, Janie joined me and “others” for the opening night. Quite a stalwart was Janie in those days.

Harriet Quirk writes about that opening night on the NewsRevue Facebook group – click here for link:

I remember it well ! Rory Bremner came along to the first show with unfortunately only about 10 other people!…

…so that’s Rory, Janie, me, Harriet and possibly six others. We might be anble to name the whole audience if we put our minds to it. Harriet continues…

We were asked to put on shows at a venue in Willesden by a big Newsrevue fan and after lots of deliberation could only come up with Bish Bash Bosh as a name. Unfortunately it didn’t take off 😢

I responded:

The place was a dive if I remember correctly. I must interrogate Janie about it and see what she remembers. I do recall her not liking the place and forming a strong view that Newsrevue wouldn’t work there. 

Yup, that’s just about all she remembers.

I wonder whether anyone has the running order for that show. The only artifact that provides more clues I scraped from a comedy collective site some months ago – good job I scraped it because it has now gone. I have thus preserved one of Ivan Shakespeare’s classic songs – The Subsidy Song – for posterity. It was for sure in this Bish Bash Bosh show. Here’s the link again – enjoy.

That sheet confirms the Bish Bash Bosh cast…and what an excellent cast it was – scraped below with spellings/misspellings intact:

Jonathon Linsley, Paul Dietch, Paula Tappenden, Virginie Gilchrist and Una McNulty

A Rendezvous With Jacqui Somerville, Canal Cafe Theatre, 25 August 1992

A rare, indeed mysterious visit to the Canal Cafe on a Tuesday.

I recall this only vaguely. The diary helps just a little.

When I dropped off my Woody Allen & Mia Farrow lyric the week before, I think I ran into Jacqui Somerville herself at the Canal. Either that, or I ran into Harriet Quirk who had a message that Jacqui wanted to meet me. In any case, Jacqui and I arranged to meet on a non-NewsRevue evening.

Jacqui had been directing the early spring run of NewsRevue – that was the first show I saw. I shall write up the story of my early correspondence and visits in the fullness of time. Jacqui had her own ideas about the show, including her own pet writers, some of whom were cast, which went down very badly with the regular writers.

Indeed, at the first NewsRevue writers meeting I attended, some told me not to bother submitting for a few weeks, others simply suggested that I don’t lose heart and resubmit material that had longevity for the subsequent run; which was in fact the John Random run that first used my stuff.

So I do remember Jacqui’s rendezvous request sort-of feeling like an assignation. What would the other writers think if they found out about it? Was she going to try and recruit me into the comedy writing dark side? Or to spy for the Russians or something?

In fact, I recall finding Jacqui quite delightful company, very encouraging and full of good advice/ideas for my writing. I had a little burst of creativity over the subsequent bank holiday weekend, which I’m sure was somewhat inspired by that Tuesday evening chat.

I don’t know whether Jacqui met up with any of the other regular NewsRevue writers over that summer to build bridges, but she certainly won me over and used plenty of the regular writers’ material (not least mine) in future runs she directed, not least the 1992 Christmas run.

I also recall running into Jacqui and her more serious theatre work in subsequent years.

I wonder whether Harriet remembers much about this tiny incident or indeed whether this short piece might be a magnet with which to re-establish contact with Jacqui, as part of our “class of ’92” reunion project?