Twenty Seventy-one and All That

Tags

1984, Animal Farm, george orwell, Nineteen eighty-four, satire, Trump

Eric Gredwell, an historical reappraisal,
by Donald J Smith, Steve Bannon Tech, year VI,
March 2075

How many readers are aware that Eric Gredwell originally wanted to call his most famous book Twenty Seventeen?  Afraid that the work would seem ominously pessimistic and counter to the prevailing mood of societies set on rediscovering their nationalistic greatness, his publishers convinced him to reverse the title to the now notorious Twenty Seventy-one, leading readers to see it as a piece of speculative fiction rather than a ham-fisted allegory.  Now that even this ominous date is finally past. and his works can be read again (by state-approved readers only, of course) it may be time to take stock of the work of this man.  Born George Corbyn in the late Twentieth Century, he changed his name to avoid confusion with a minor politician of the time and to protect his family from the anger of true conservatives, offended by his liberal whinings.  Fortunately, he reckoned without the data capture abilities of the security services, even in those technologically backward times.

So do we now see him as a gifted critic and visionary, or just another justly neglected limp-dick liberal hack?  It’s  the latter, of course, but it is still valuable to consider his works and ideas, when the spectres of personal freedom and democracy are once more rearing their ugly heads in some quarters.  And a salutary reminder to scholars and casual readers alike, that these books, seen now as blueprints for our authoritarian utopia, were intended as warnings of a dark future, by a man so blinkered by liberal nonsense and facts that he became a poster boy for socialist idealists everywhere, despite being an archetypal product of the metropolitan elite (I am assuming my readers can look up these historical term on Truthipedia for themselves).

After leaving elitist establishment institutions Harrow School and Cambridge University, Gredwell went into journalism, working for legendary lie-mongers, the Grauniad.  While there he brought out his first two books, about life in the ‘misunderstood’ hipster movement, Keep the Antipasti Coming and The Road to Canary Wharf.  But then the after-effects of Brexit and the poverty which we now see as an important stage in the restructuring of society, led him to travel extensively ‘up North’, resulting in his first really important work of social study, Down and Out in Sleaford and Bolton.

His cry-baby liberal posturing reached its peak when he travelled to America to fight for the anti-Trump forces, along with many other artists and intellectuals, in the Civil War of the late ‘Teens. Although the result of this conflict was a foregone conclusion, quinoa recipes, Dalai Lama quotes and factional infighting being no match for heavily armed butch home boys (and girls),  like  all artists  he was only too prepared to milk his experiences for material and make money out of them. The resulting book, Homage to California, made his  name, but it was the turning of all this material into allegorical novels that made him popular with foolish adolescents the world over.

Before Twenty Seventy-one came Poultry Farm, in which the chickens, geese and turkeys, led by Nigel the rooster, take over the running of their farm from Farmer Cameron.  Arguing that the farmers have long ceased to listen to the poultry, but ruled them with arrogance and lies from the comfort of their elaborate farmhouse, the slogan ‘false facts bad, true facts good’ and the promise to spend all the profits wasted on admin for the farmers union on better veterinary provision, the roosters soon sweep away the old order, only to find that Nigel and his fellow cocks begin to act just like the farmers they replace.  They also replace the motto with ‘true facts good, false facts better’ and famously say that ‘of course the turkeys will vote for Christmas and even gloat about winning it, as long as they can be distracted from reading the menu’.

But it is his most  notorious work I wish to concentrate on.   It follows the experiences of one Wilson Jones a citizen of the fictional ‘Fifty-first State’, a huge shopping mall populated almost entirely by native born ‘Staters’, only a  select few of whom have productive jobs or the money to buy the goods on offer in the dilapidated stores,  The private health system concentrates all its resources (as is only right, a fact apparently lost on Gredwell) on treating the wealthy few and keeping sufficient ‘scroungers’ alive to play alien-hunting games with their mobile devices until they are needed to do some menial task.  Of course Gredwell failed to realise the full impact that cybernetics would have in very few years, making this provision for the health of undesirably indolent citizens almost totally unnecessary.

Society is controlled from the offices of Factcorp, Tradecorp and Coolcorp, corporations charged with maintaining order by (respectively) spreading misinformation, ensuring business deals are unopposed by their potential ‘victims’ (we would now say ‘beneficiaries’ of course) and ensuring that no one worried openly about the environment or spread the pernicious doctrine of ‘global warming’.  In one very heavy-handed scene, Jones’s neighbour Alan is seen being taken away to a correctional facility:

xxx“What have you done?” asked Wilson.
xxx“Oh, I’ve been such a fool,” Alan replied, “I went out without a coat on yesterday and my son heard me say that it was surprisingly warm for February.  He reported me to Coolcorp.  I’m so proud of him; I’ve only myself to blame.  Make sure you wrap up well, if you’re going out, Wilson.”
xxxWiping sweat from his eyes, Wilson looked at the old thermometer on the outside wall. It read three degrees above zero on the McMorris-Rogers scale.  Under the peeling piece of paper stuck onto it, he could just make out the old Celsius marking of 38.  The maker’s name and town reminded him that, before the perfectly natural cyclic sunspot activity had removed the polar ice caps and caused the seas to burn off their methane, creating the barmy climate people now enjoyed in the North, there had indeed been a Hull, a few miles South of the coastal city of Beverley.

Wilson works in the Photoshop (primitive image manipulation software without any suitability checking) department of Factcorp, editing images to suit the changing requirements of reality.  While there he develops a dangerous distrust of official facts and begins to believe in the myth of an ‘objective reality’.  For instance when he sees the sponsored rejoicing (we’re making the State great!) in the street over the government’s deal to save 1,000 jobs in Kettering, he is sure he remembers a report of the same factory moving 2,000 jobs to its factories in China only the day before.  But the footage of the Great Orange Leader, Big Don, decrying this has been deleted from the files.

Then, at a Vitriol Rally, where he watches speeches by the hated enemy, Crooked Hillary (speeches which he has had a part in making ‘true’) and joins in with the ritual yelling of Lock Her Up!! he notices a young woman, Juliet, who also seems less than enthusiastic about joining in the mob hysteria.  They begin the inevitable affair and start to talk about the possibility of introducing ideas like verifiable truth and co-operative living into the perfect world of business and cut-throat competition.  He notes in his private diary software that if there is any hope it must lie with the disaffected and out of work people, if only they could be made to see that their destitution is caused by the system and the plutocrats that control it, rather than the hated Metropolitan Elite, a shadowy and in fact extinct group, thought of by the oiks as being almost mythical beings, festooned with tattoos and bushy beards.

Thinking they can make themselves safe from detection by turning off their mobile phones, Wilson and Juliet go out among the workers of  Bury and hide out above a run-down Apple store, run by a strange old man.  But they have underestimated the power of the NSA and the phone companies. When in the middle of a sexual act, their phones turn themselves on and tell them they have been caught (and instantly share film of their activities on social media), they are taken into custody for reprogramming.

In the headquarters of  Tradecorp, Wilson meets the CEO, McBride, who shows him a photoshopped picture of his hand from the Daily Express and asks how many fingers he was holding up when the photo was taken; Wilson of course cannot answer as he cannot see the accompanying article.  McBride explains the basic principle on which society is controlled for the good of all shareholders:

xxx“‘Facts’, Wilson, are simply those assertions in which it is nicer to believe, ‘evidence’ is an apparently collaborative website, and ‘proof’ is a meaningless dream, a trick with smoke and mirrors.  If Big Don says he never said something, any footage that may exist of him saying that very thing simply isn’t real.”

When he asks about the identity and apparent longevity of the shadowy leader, Big Don, McBride admits that the original demagogue, one ‘Trump’, was assassinated as soon as he served his purpose of getting white supremacist ‘ctrl-right’ operators into key positions, but he lives on in manipulated videos and the fake tans and wigs worn at rallies by his supporters:

xxx“Charisma is the great thing.  A man with charisma can be a complete and utter bastard, even on the surface, talk unmitigated shite and still have people yelling mindless slogans until they go hoarse and drop dead from exhaustion. But charismatic men are also unstable, unpredictable, dangerous.  Fortunately their charisma is now something we can bottle, store on video files, edit and replay in endless variation, while firmer but less erratic hands move the tiller of society, through the turbulent but profitable waters of all-embracing commerce.  And the object of the market is the market.  Imagine if you will an eternal picture of a boot stamping on a human face, framed and constantly being traded up on e-Bay.  That is the world as it is, Wilson.  Suck it up.”

Sadly, Wilson, like his creator, can’t suck it up and has to be written out of life.  Eventually he is sent to Room 202 to face his greatest fear (101 was seen as reminiscent of the American version of a class for dummies; as Gredwell wrote after the UK chose Brexit and Trump took power in America, issuing in the ‘Golden Age, Honest’, the morons have taken over the remedial class).  Unfortunately, Wilson is an acrophobic, terrified of heights, and Room 202 is in the basement. The State budget doesn’t run to moving the room to the top of Manchester-on-Sea’s Trump Tower, so Wilson is merely told he has been hung screaming out of a window on the 63rd floor, a statement verified by his own doctored footage on Snapchat. As an unperson and a broken man he is doomed to wander the sweltering Winter streets, surrounded by people who have been told he doesn’t exist, that he is a ‘false fact’.

After writing a number of articles critical of the Nutall and Pence regimes and disturbing the equilibrium of a society making itself great again through the great gift of recession, Gredwell took his own life by tying himself to the High Speed 2 railway line South of Birmingham.  After a three year wait, his head was sliced clean off by a testing car.  In this student’s opinion, this was no great loss.

[Compiled and written by Autowrite, checked for intellectual risk factor by Agent 3624]

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We Walk in the City

Tags

Edinburgh, Fringe, Gladys Weems, humour, J B Priestley, ridiculous, spayne, spigwell, walking tour

[Another entry from our friends at the Spayne and Spigwell Advertiser, whose reporter, Gladys Weems, is still posting occasional notes from her visit to the Edinburgh Festivals in August…]

As a fan of the theatre, but unfamiliar with the author in question, I was fascinated to see a daytime event billed as They Walk in the City: A J B Priestley Walking Tour of Edinburgh.  I had no idea there was any connection between Priestley and the city of Edinburgh, though I’ve no doubt he went there at some point in his life.  That we started on Picardy Place, by a statue of Sherlock Holmes and the birthplace of his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, only added to the intrigue.  I knew the two men’s lives overlapped by some three decades, but was there some specific connection?

Well, if there was we weren’t told about it, as our guide, a charming Yorkshire lass who introduced herself as Jenny Villiers, didn’t let us linger long enough to ask. She led us straight to the crossing opposite the tram terminus.  Warning us to take care as this was a dangerous corner, she led us across and onto Queen Street.

“Although we’re in Edinburgh, Scotland”, she said, “I want to take you on a very English journey, and I hope by the end, we’ll all be good companions. If you follow me to the right and down the hill, we’ll come to the Linden Tree pub at the end of Eden Lane.”

And so it began.  After this cheery start, she seemed more keen to lead us on and encourage us to talk amongst ourselves, than explain anything.  Any attempt to ask about what Priestley had to do with the streets, views and locations visited or passed was met with some waffle, seemingly unconnected, or a question to another member of the party.  As well as that, she kept getting calls on her mobile phone, apparently from her boyfriend, who, she said, was a bit miffed that she was leading a walk on his birthday.  She kept telling him that she’d make it up to him, “when we are married,” which was supposed to be happening very soon.  A few of us speculated that it would be a surprise if it happened at all.

We turned back towards town up Dublin Street, and one or two of our number were beginning to get a bit fractious, demanding to be told exactly what any of these locations had to do with the Yorkshire playwright.  But Ms Villiers merely asked, with some agitation, what the time was.  This amused some of us, since we were actually standing outside Conway’s Timepiece Emporium, which had a number of clocks in the window, all agreeing that it was three thirty in the afternoon.  When this was pointed out, Jenny insisted we had to get a move on, or else we wouldn’t be finished before the thirty first of June, which seemed an amusingly random exaggeration.

By now the party was giving up trying to understand what was going on and talking increasingly among themselves, which became more interesting than anything Ms Villiers was describing, even the oldest buildings in the New Town — the second time we passed them.  When one of the party pointed this out, Jenny merely laughed and said, “Oh yes. I have been here before, haven’t I?”

At that moment a uniformed figure called out, “Are you lost, miss?” from over the road.

“No, no, inspector,” our guide answered, “just taking these good people on a tour; it’s a Fringe event.”

Well, things became no clearer as we went via St Andrew’s Square and along Rose Street. She pointed out strange but irrelevant things, like our reflections in the long mirror in Jenners’ window and three men in new suits who passed us as we crossed Hanover Street.  In response to persistent questions about Priestley’s connections, if any, with Scotland, she merely said, “It’s an old country.”

I think we were all relieved when the thing finally came to an end at the Rose and Crown pub, where she said we should all go in and have a drink or six.  As we got to the bar, there was a discussion as to whether we should buy her a drink — or even ask for our money back.

Then a lady from Farbridge (wherever that is) pointed out that we hadn’t actually paid yet, and, being British, we all felt guilty and turned to our guide to see when she was going to take our cash.  But there was nothing to be seen of her.

So your correspondent can’t say the experience was a total waste of money, but nor can she work out what on earth any of it had to do with John Boynton Priestley. Life, eh?

I Bid Two Clubs

Tags

arts clubs, Chelsea Arts Club, Edinburgh, Garrick Club, Scottish Arts Club, social life

Occasionally it might be a good idea to use this blog to lay before an uninterested world, stories or thoughts or any general waffle what once got writted but never ‘published’ .. or even some things that did and want another airing.  What I’m saying is that I can use old material to fill new gaps.  So here’s an updated musing from five years back …

These opening lines are being written [on the 16th August 2011] in the Morning Room of the Garrick Club, beneath a bust of Charles Kemble and just to the right of a large Bombay Sapphire and tonic. With two dozen actors and musicians of yore staring down from the walls, including David G himself over the ornate fireplace, eternally and silently playing Richard III for all he’s worth, the setting is as opulent and sedate as the Chelsea Arts Club Billiard Room can get bohemian and raucous.

In the Tuesday-lunchtime Dining Room below, smart lounge suits and club ties are the norm, and conventionally, though not legally, the central table of this gentlemen-only club is still kept free of ladies. In SW3, by contrast, dress tends to be more casual, and, though ‘ladies’ are now welcome as members and active in all areas, there are probably a good few who would object to the nomenclature almost as emphatically as they would to being told where they could and couldn’t eat.

Now, there can be little doubt that drink flows as freely, and conversation gets as ribald and stimulating in either establishment when the stars are propitious, or that both sets of guest rooms have seen their share of comings and goings in the night. Indeed, the observant visitor will take note of the Garrick’s glass-encased statuettes, rather cheeky in more ways than one. But it seems more than likely that the contrast between the formal portraits on the walls in Covent Garden and the raunchy cartoons that grace the Chelsea staircase is a fair metaphor for that between the venues in general.

It’s equally plain that my erstwhile Auld Reekie home [the Scottish Arts Club, for the website of which this was intended] sits somewhere between these two stools. But where it sits well below them is in membership, and particularly in attendance. Were there to be any improvement, this writer would prefer its nature to tend to the boho end of the scale, but of course there are plenty of spaces in the Club and hours in the week to accommodate a variety of atmospheres, just as we currently enjoy a variety of events, from formal to burlesque.

Either way, it must first be acknowledged that our Club suffers from two major disadvantages. All the major London clubs have four-figure memberships and well-populated waiting lists; but then they do have, within a twenty-mile radius, a population about twice the heid-count of this whole proud Nation.

Then there is the question of accommodation. Leaving aside niggling questions of reciprocation, and even though we do offer members, their guests and our affiliates excellent deals at two city hotels, it cannot be denied that there is an added appeal to being able to get lightly blootered in a convivial bar and then simply lurch up the wooden hill to Bedrule (with or without the option of shenanigans … this is Edinburgh, after all … in the legendary words of the Morningside brothel madam, You’ll have had your sex).

So what can be done, despite these handicaps, to enlarge and perhaps slightly shift the demographic for the dear auld SAC? We are, after all, situated in a city with more than its share of intellectual and artistic-leaning folk, of all ages, and Scots bow to no other nation in their fondness for a blether and a dram.

Perhaps the first step is to get some of the existing members to use the place more regularly or in slightly different, more ‘casual’ ways. For, while the expanding range of special events never fails to scintillate, it would be good if some of us could sin till half past ten at least. Folks working in the King’s Road area regularly call into Old Church Street for a snifter on the way home and a few of those do actually go home after it. So it’s no use arguing that a private members club is only of interest to retired folks and layabouts like your correspondent, with too many daylight hours on their gnarled old hands. That such venerable (or feckless) members could still use the place for a quiet afternoon read or a natter would remain unchanged and no doubt quite a few would stay on to join the later revels and show the youngsters a thing or two about merrymaking.

And we should attract not just homeward-looking angels, but revellers bound for plays, movies or concerts — or even, if we can drag in a younger crowd, the bars and clubs. Not only are the Hall of the House of Usher, three theatres and two art-house cinemas in easy reach but so are all the sordid dives of Fear and Lothian Road, and what better way to start an evening than by foregathering in the well-stocked and reasonably-priced bar of the Scottish Arts Club?

But it has already been noted that, at lunchtimes and in the early evening, members have appeared, seen no one around, and moved on, only to be followed by another member doing likewise ten minutes later and perhaps one or two others at similar intervals: had they all arrived at once, a jolly coterie would no doubt soon have collected. As it is, few are happy to sit around just on spec, and who can blame them?

Now, after some insubstantial research, it can be stated that it is actually against the law of the land to hold people in the building against their will, much less nail their feet to the floor, even as a temporary and well-intentioned measure — so that idea has had to be abandoned.

The present writer has suggested that a few persons might be used to ‘seed’ the bar at crucial times. Indeed he did offer to sit at a table on otherwise quiet lunch times, behind a placard bearing the legend ‘will chat for food’. Some, who know him only too well, have suggested that a more effective strategy might be to reword it ‘will shut up for food’. Either way the basic principle of seeding might apply, even if said correspondent lacks the elusive spondulicks to purchase any food for himself on such occasions. And this can apply even moreso in the bar of an evening, when the starving artist can sit with a glass of sky wine and pretend it is the aforementioned juice of the juniper.

Perhaps, to save any such attempt at increased cordiality being a hit-and-miss affair which rapidly fizzles out, we should take our cue from the technological age. From ‘flashmobs’ and silent discos to the odd spot of rioting (not that we do that here, in the People’s Republic of Salmondia — which is a pity, as a new laptop would have come in very handy), those tools of the interweb ironically known as ‘social media’ might make a good starting point. Increasingly, members are online and at least a little techno-savvy. Some of us are even on that Facebook they have now, and it wouldn’t take long for other interested parties to register. Your humble and geeky correspondent would no doubt not be the only maven willing to assist the more technophobic in taking the necessary plunges.

The reason that such a site as Facebook might be preferred to e-mail is that one can sign on there without necessarily exposing one’s e-address or e-anything else one prefers not to expose to public gaze. And, rather than being bothered by regular ‘who’s-up-for-drinkies?’ mails, one can take a peek at the appropriate ‘page’ only when one feels inclined to see if anything is going on — or indeed to instigate goings-on. If one does want bothering, Facebook (other equally tiresome sites are available) can be set up to send one an email whenever another member posts on the Club page.

Indeed, many options present themselves with this wonderful and confusing tool. Rather than just ‘post’ one’s suggestion one can even ‘create an event’. Click the relevant button and say anything from ‘lunchtime chat’ to ‘late night sybaritic orgy’, specify date and time and Mr Zuckerberg’s little cash cow will send a mail to every member of the group (use this power wisely and sparingly, mes enfants!) and it will even count the positive rsvps for you. Clever cove, Johnny Yankee.

Well, an impulsive executive decision was made, mere weeks after this article was started (not to mention in a much humbler Dalry setting), and the initial steps taken. All an existing member of the Book of Faces had to do was enter Scottish Arts Club in the Search box at the top, and the page would leap into view. Rather cleverly, none of the items already posted by members on the main page would be visible until one was admitted into the ranks of the elect, which required, and still requires, the intervention of Yours Truly (probably one simply clicks the ‘join’ button and the system asks those of us in charge for approval — ah, the power, the power!). It is not even necessary to add such a panjandrum (or indeed any fellow member) as what is over-optimistically termed a ‘Facebook friend’, though all would be more than welcome to do so.

So, I said at the time, if you like the idea, why not give it a whirl? Once we have, say, 20 or 30 members in the group, we might see people extending invites right left and centre. And this is not an exclusively computerised idea of course. For, if it has the desired effect, word should get round even to the technophobic member or the more impromptu socialite that there is a much improved chance of finding jovial company and general good cheer at number 24. And not long after that, when word gets round the rest of Edinburgh’s havering classes, there will be a queue half way down Princes Street of literati and glitterati, begging to join the Scottish Arts.

I bid two clubs. Anyone care to raise?

At least, that was the idea.  Ah, those best laid schemes and all that rot. Some of the members used the page and still do for contacts, notices, etc, but the quietness of a Friday night is only of use to the unsociable.  Successive brochures still give the impression of an old folks’ home, however jolly, as it is very hard to show how many of those white-haired members have led lives of sybaritic and artistic excess, without, say, claiming that none of them is over 35.  And now that the increasingly popular Chelsea has cut its affiliate ties with Scottish and Irish clubs, even that appeal is weaker.  Indeed the  Chelsea now has a splinter club, founded by Molly Parkin’s daughter, which is itself oversubscribed.  Further thoughts may follow, comparing and contrasting other Edinburgh arty spaces, like the busy bar at Summerhall.  But for now, some of us have novels to write …

 

Notes from the Other Ground

Tags

Comedy, Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, humour, PBH Free Fringe, Stand Up Comedy

The Spayne and Spigwell Advertiser sent their indefatigable reporter, Gladys Weems, to Edinburgh to check out the progress of local comedian Jolly Jim Jardine as he assaults the Fringe in more ways than none.

GW: So, how’s it going?

JJ:    Not well, to be honest, Glad.  Or should I say to be Glad, honest?

GW: No, I can’t see any reason why you should.

JJ:    Fair enough.  I think my main problem is the lack of audiences.  There’s just so much competition out there and a lot of the other comedians have what I’d call unfair advantages.

GW: Such as?

JJ:    Well, being famous, having done more on telly than just getting thrown out of an Apollo audience, having an army of publicity people giving out flyers, contacts in the big press, coming from bigger cities …

GW: … being funny?

JJ:    Don’t start that crap again.  Funny is subjective and anyway, being unfunny worked for Andy Kaufmann, Ted Chippington, Stewart …

GW: Yes, but they were trying to annoy the audience from the start.  Then again, I understand you do that with your rather aggressive flyering technique.

JJ:    Yeah, but that’s sort of comedic in itself – gives them a flavour of the in-yer-face style …

GW:  … scares them off too.

JJ:    It works back home.  I can’t see why it’s so much less effective here.

GW: Just a suggestion, Jim, but it may be that Wyberton being small and Spigwell minuscule, means you know most of your victims.  No one here has any real fear that you’re going to smash their windows if you don’t see them at the gig.  And they’re not even their own windows while they’re up here.

JJ:    Yeah, well, it’s all in fun.  All part of the act.

GW: Including all those cases for damage to property back home?

JJ:    This is the fringe.  It’s different, innit?

GW: Obviously.  But I want to come on to the name change, Jim … or should I say, Andy?

JJ:    [laughs] Yeah, well, that slightly went wrong.

GW: Was it an attempt to get away from the bad press?

JJ:    Bloody hell, no.  I’ve only made the nationals a couple of times anyway and no one from Spayne can afford to come to Edinburgh in August.  No, it was simple a funny idea I had. …

GW: Wow, that’s a first.

JJ:    Oi!  Seriously though, I was trying to get a spot at the Stand comedy venues, so I thought Andy Liver would make a fun name, in the context.

GW: It all makes some sense now.  So Potting Shed Andy Liver isn’t simply an overstretched idea.

JJ:    Well, it is; maybe a bit oversophisticated for my audience …

GW: Both of them?

JJ:    Piss off!  I’ve had a few punters in the street get it, though they don’t seem to realise I already thought of it. If I’ve heard “You ought to be playing at the Stand!” from one person, I’ve heard it from six.

GW: Two of whom you attacked, I hear.

JJ:    Smartarses.  Can’t stand ’em.

GW: Indeed.  Good job they’re not pressing charges.  But back to the title of your show.  It is actually taking place in a potting shed, I believe?  Somewhere in Stockbridge?  Is that part of the PBH Free Fringe?

JJ:    No, they wouldn’t have me either. So I found this potting shed … I think the owners are abroad somewhere.  Hope so anyway.  Saves accommodation costs, too. And it’s more a sort of JJJ Negative Fringe.

GW: Jolly Jim Jar…

JJ:    Yeah.  And before you ask, it’s negative in that I’ve taken to paying people to come.  Thank fuck the shed only holds about six people.

GW: So, any sell-outs yet?

JJ:    Fuck no, I couldn’t afford that.

GW: Can’t say I’m surprised. Your only review so far said you even make Peter Buckley Hill seem funny by compari…

 

The interview was terminated at this point when Jardine/Liver grabbed our reporter by the throat and attempted to strangle her.  He was remanded in custardy at Edinburgh Sheriff’s Court.  All further performances of Potting Shed Andy Liver have been cancelled.

 

* * *

 

The vaguely real and occasionally funny Dai Lowe is appearing in Well, It’s Woody, daily at The Street Bar, 2 Picardy Place, EH1 3JT.  Check out the PBH Wee Blue App for details of that and loads of other shows by the stars of tomorrow, the has-beens of yesterday and the no-hopers of today, all performing for whatever you’re prepared to chuck in the bucket at the end.

What is Ruth?

Tags

Comedy, Fitness, Francis Bacon, humour, Pilates

[A review from our friends at the Spayne and Spigwell Advertiser]

Last night, to Jesting Pilates health and comedy club, the latest venture from local entrepreneur and serial bankrupt, Ruth Benbow.

Falling painfully between two stools and embarrassingly ripping its leotard, this promises to be another failed dream.

The appeal of fusion, as an idea at least, is obvious: take two popular trends and combine them in one setting, thus doubling attendance and revenue at a stroke. Well, up to a point. Experience suggests this rarely works in any setting, even combining two cultures in one field.  Seventies classical/rock band Sky were very successful for a while, but with a predominantly middle-of-the-road audience, rather than fans of Led Zep or Roy Phil.  And though fusion restaurants can entice people with the novelty of spaghetti con carne or haggis biriyani dim sum, they usually find most diners drift back to their favourite single ethnicity eateries.

So will a comedy and fitness club attract laughter lovers to press-ups and fitness freaks to stand-ups? Or will each aspect alienate those who don’t already do both anyway?  On the evidence of the  opening night, even with free food and wine, the prospects are not good for Ms Benbow tempting many locals in Lycra from Badger Hill’s No Spayne No Gayne health centre, nor, unless she features some quality acts, getting the audience from the already poorly attended comedy nights at the Birchwode Centre (which did once feature Paddy McGuinness) to spend even more of their meagre dosh.

The grand opening event featured the fitness part of the club but provided most of the comedy.  It began with a fanfare by members of the Spayne and Spigwell Silver Band, mounted on an array of exercise bikes. The accompanying formation routine on treadmills by Wyberton’s own Dis-Placement dance troupe was certainly entertaining, if not quite as intended, and at least the falls and collisions that brought it to a premature close gave Ms B a chance to show off her physiotherapy suite.

The official comedy part of the evening was compered by the ever unpopular Mike Open, and the bill was topped, if that’s the word, by Spayne’s celebrity son, Jolly Jim ‘As Seen on TV’ Jardine — though being escorted from the audience of Live at the Apollo by security guards for obscenely heckling Frankie Boyle is a slender claim to national exposure. Despite all the worries (and the welcome extra frisson of expectation they brought), he did manage to keep his set unusually family-friendly, while keeping it familiarly funny-free.

If your reviewer could offer one piece of advice to Ms Benbow for future enterprises, it would be not to let obscure references be the sole motivation for her ideas. It must have been as satisfying to discover and tweak the ‘Jesting Pilate’ quote (which Yours Truly admits having to google), as it was when she came up with her cake and pizza shop Il Gateau Pardough.  But once the self-satisfied giggling has subsided, it’s time to step back and think again before jumping in with both feet, and eyes closed.

Yes, the title of this review runs with the same theme, but at least it is explained here (if you’ve had a quick google) and not crucial to my career [want a  bet?  Ed.]; and how many of the attendees on Friday will have known why the only nibbles were tiny bacon sandwiches?

In the immortal words of Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday: Look it up!

I’m not waiting for an aswer.

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