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The Levelling

We went to see an amazing film premiere, as part of the BFI London Film Festival.

‘The Levelling’ is a dark and dramatic film, set against the backdrop of the devastating Somerset floods. It tells the story of a young girl called Clover, who returns to her family farm when her brother commits suicide. The complex relationship between her and her father and the struggles the family go through are told with a brilliant script and stunning performances from Ellie Kendrick and David Troughton.

It’s a hugely immersive film – with fantastic cinematography and direction. Go see it, you won’t be disapointed.

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12th October 2016

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No Man’s Land

Ages ago we booked tickets for a matinee performance of A Harold Pinter play, called ‘No Man’s Land’. We knew nothing about the play, and booked it purely for the actors. The idea of seeing Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian Mckellan close up and locally in Brighton was too good to ignore.

Unfortunately, we should perhaps have found out more about the play before we booked. The performances were great, but the play itself was absurd. There was no real story and it wasn’t easy to work out what was going on – or what went on, once it had finished! It didn’t help that it was about 8 million degrees in the Theatre Royal.

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26th August 2016

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Christmas in July: Funny Girl and The Savoy

Finally the day had come to enjoy my Mum’s Christmas and Birthday present – tickets to see the wonderful Sheridan Smith in Funny Girl and then afternoon tea at the equally wonderful Savoy Hotel.

We met in Oxford St, and did a whistlestop tour of the second floor at Debenhams, picking up a new jacket, dress and a couple of tops on the way – all in the space of about 15 minutes! Because the Saturday Prudential Ride 100 was on in London it meant lots of road closures and grabbing a cab wasn’t easy, so we tubed down to Charing Cross and walked along The Strand to The Savoy Theatre.

It was exciting seeing the signage for Funny Girl, and I was very much hoping that Sheridan was going to be in the performance. We got to our seats, which were only 5 rows from the front and was thrilled to discover the she was in the show! I’ve never seen the film and didn’t actually read anything about the play before seeing it, so I didn’t know what to expect. I was blown away – it was a simple story and a simple set, but great acting and performances made it completely enjoyable all the way through, with funny and emotional bits (as well as songs and dancing, obviously!) There were no points were it felt like time was dragging and the audience gave Sheridan two very well deserved standing ovations. That’s the second time I’ve seen her in the West End, and the second time she has been absolutely fantastic. We saw her in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2013 at The Noel Coward Theatre, when she starred opposite David Walliams.

After the show we walked next door and had tea in the Thames Foyer at The Savoy. I was ready for it by then, and it didn’t disapoint. Dainty sandwiches, fluffy scones and sweet pastries, all set under the lovely glass dome – with a twinkling piano to accompany us. The Savoy is a grande damme of London hotels and afternoon tea there was a very civillised end to a lovely day.

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31st July 2016

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Gibson Bar

There’s a new(ish) cocktail bar opened on Old Street, called The Gibson. In the place of a previously old and dark pub, it is based around the Gibson cocktail, a variant of the Martini – made with gin, vermouth and an onion.

It was the perfect place to meet my pal Joe, who I hadn’t seen since just before Christmas. I’d been ‘warned’ that this wasn’t your average cocktail bar, and that advice turned out to be very right.

The inside of the bar is gorgeous, harking back to 1930’s New York, with mirrored tables and low seating. The staff are fab – attentive, without being overbearing and keen to help you choose the right thing. The challenge is, the menu is very diverse. There are barely any straightforward mixes on the list, everything seems to have tons of ingredients and it takes quite a while to choose.

I went for a classic vodka martini to start, followed by the more adventurous Gibson Girl. It was nice, but I couldn’t have had two as it has quite a strong flavour. I then plumped for something I can’t remember the name of. It came served in a ceramic onion, and to be honest I had to give up and send it back, as it wasn’t to my taste. The bar were great and didn’t charge me for it (I’d happily have paid, after all it was my choice) which was very generous. They also did the same for Joe, who had ordered something that appeared to be more akin to a desert than a cocktail (let’s just say, it had a ‘chocolate rim’!!)

We had a great night, chatting about anything and everything and I would definitely go back to the bar, for the staff the ambiance and the atmosphere, but I would most likely stick to a classic martini or be very careful about my next adventurous choice. Check out the menu.

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14th February 2016

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Intelligence, a Swiss army knife and charm

The title of this blog, The Warmest Room, comes from the name of a Billy Bragg song. Which isn’t particularly great for getting it up the listings on Google, but it was an obvious name on account of how much of an influence Billy’s music and songwriting has been on me. So when I saw that he had released an anthology of selected song lyrics in book form, I knew I had to have one. Regardless of the fact I could probably recite at least 50% of the songs in it myself.

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9th November 2015

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MotoGP 2015

It was all about the GOAT. In so many ways.

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8th November 2015

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A Concert for Alice

Almost a year ago, West London teenager Alice gross went missing. Alice was a student at my friend Ollie’s Forecast Academy, a Saturday performing arts school.

A while back in the Spring, over dinner and drinks, Ollie told me that he was planning on producing a West End gala in memory of Alice. I remember thinking ‘that sounds like an amazing idea’, but the scale of the ambition didn’t really sink in.

Fast forward three months. Three months of intensive planning, organising and hard work, and on 21 July we were staging ‘a unique charity gala evening of live performance in memory of Alice Gross and in aid of Alice’s Youth Music Memorial Fund’ at The Ambassadors Theatre in London. A proper theatre, in London’s Glittering West End – eek!

A few weeks before I had offered to help, unsure really what use I could be, but knowing I wanted to offer what I could. I’ve done a fair bit of event management, I organise stuff for a living, I’ve timed a two-championship winning race team with a cool head and spent 7 years in the music/video industry. I wasn’t sure what, if any of this was relevant, but I knew I wanted to help and support.

So that’s how I ended up Stage Manager on the night!

We put together a small crew. Small, considering the task ahead, at least. Luckily the core of the crew work together usually, so we didn’t all have to get to know eachother and our strange ways 🙂

We had a production meeting the night before the show and armed with clipboards, passess and running orders, we did a full page-turn and chatted through the artists and performances. With 17 separate performances, plus two speeches, there was a lot of sheer logistics in getting acts on and off stage, especially with The Ambassadors having such a small backstage and dressing room/green room area.

After a fortifying breakfast on Tuesday morning, we assembled at the stage door at 11.45 ready for load in. The first point we could get into the theatre was 12pm, and that was the first time we got to see what we were faced with. The Ambassador’s is a lovely, small, intimate theatre, and is currently home to the London performance of STOMP. This meant that we were working around the STOMP set and around their backstage set up, and the area behind the stage was extremely small.

We had several areas ‘in play’ at the same time – the backstage area, 3 dressing rooms, a green room at the top of 3 flights of stairs and some space in the cafe area of a theatre down the road. Somehow we had to organise a flow-through of artists to ensure that we could get the acts in the theatre, on the stage and off again like clockwork. And bearing in mind some of the acts had up to 20 people in them and completely different sound and set up requirements. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

Luckily we had radios and headsets (and a very well organised production running order). Without them we’d never have been able to co-ordinate getting everyone where they should be at the right time. Or randomly bark at eachother or still issue instructions for cable ties when someone was half a mile away in the hardware shop!

Once the sound guys had set up we were able to start the first soundchecks. The set up was complicated, due to the number of acts involved and the different requirements. We soon realised that clearing down the set for the dance act ZooNation part way through the first half didn’t make sense, and we needed to move the running order to make sure they closed that half. This caused a bit of confusion during the actual performance but we styled it out!

The sound checks took ages and we very nearly ran out of time. The fact we were still on stage at 7.15 with curtain up at 7.30 was a bit hairy, but somehow we were ready to start when we should. We were on a very tight schedule and couldn’t afford to run late.

It was terrifying giving the instruction to the theatre to dim the lights and curtain up. The guys from the theatre were lovely and so helpful and saw me through the opening bit, but after that we were pretty much on our own and our compere for the evening Eddie was on stage. Paul and I, who were backstage, quickly got into a rhythm, and thankfully Eddie was amazingly good at filling the gaps when we had technical hitches or when an artist wasn’t quite where they should be on time. Madge and Rupert were helping out with people flow and stage changeovers, and Mel and Lauren were looking after our wonderful artists in the 3 locations we had. Chris was filming, Jody was directing, Mark was PR’ing and Ollie was rightly out front, enjoying the performance.

The backstage area was roasting – and obviously very dark. There wasn’t enough room and we were a bit ‘stuttery’ in some parts with some of the technical stuff. It was stressful and it was emotional, but none of that mattered. We got every artist on stage, and they all wowed the audience. We were 10 tickets off a full-house on the night and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Most importantly, we were doing something for a great cause and for our production crew, we had delivered a show that 12 hours earlier none of us had really known how it would go.

A second career in event production awaits us 🙂 After quite a long rest…

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28th July 2015

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Race family

Today sees the end of the 2015 Isle of Man TT, with the prestigious Senior Superbike race.

The Isle of Man Senior TT is the most awe-inspiring, heart-in-the-mouth motorcyle race in the world, but this year was a little bit more special because the team we used to work with won 2 races. Team Traction Control won the two Supersport races with Ian Hutchinson onboard, the first time Hutchy has won TT races since returning from the accident that nearly caused him to lose a leg.

While listening to the race on the radio, I got to thinking a bit about the fun times we had a couple of years ago in the team.

For 2.5 years we worked with Keith Flint’s Team Traction Control, when we were a club-racing based team. In that time we went on to win the Clubman Endrance Championship, followed directly by the National Endurance Championship. During those years we had a brilliant time, travelling the country for races, spending a lot of time standing in the rain and making some great new friends. Probably the best thing that came out of the whole experience was the new friends we made, a lot of who we still see, but the whole thing was pretty special. It felt a bit like a family, which is where being called ‘race mum’ by the team came from.

Endurance racing ran over a 3-hour period, with 2 riders and 2 bikes. The riders for the National Championship were Steve Mercer (also competing this week in the IOM) and Ben Neeves, and mine and Madge’s role was to set the strategy for the race and manage the timings – not as easy as it sounds when just anything can happen – including rain, safety cars, crashes and breakdowns. Sometimes all in the same 3-hours! Every two weeks, throughout two and a half summers, I experienced the most stressful 3 hours of my life, and have never been so wet! No one wants to be responsible for the decisions that could cost the team the race or make a mistake and get us a penalty, so it was maximum concentration at all times. I learned a lot from how the team functioned and the trust the riders place in the contact they have with the pitwall – the ‘ship to shore’. When you are part of a team like that everyone has to absolutely trust eachother, as one slip could at minimum lose you the race/championship and at worse, be a lot worse – and you all have to pull together and be solid in front of the other teams.

We were super-organised, even having our timing sheets pre-printed and spending ages working out different scenarios, which we ran through at the team meeting ahead of the race. Even though we were an amateur team we all took it very seriously, not least because it cost a lot of money, but because we had a massive amount of pride. It really was a case of ‘if you’re going to do something, do it properly’. But in the end, you can’t predict what’s likely to happen on track and any of the many variables could play a part. Best-laid plans quite often get scuppered! There were moments of hilarity but also moments of high-drama and protest and I do miss the team spirit. The work on the day was serious, but there were quite a lot of classic moments outside of that, that will have to stay with the ‘what goes on tour…’ ethic!

Part-way through the National season we also had a little trip over to Northern Ireland for Steve to compete in the NW200 – though unfortunately the weather once again stepped in and there was a lot more drinking than there was racing!

Following winning the National Endurance Championship the team has gone off in a different direction, now competing professionally in BSB and of course, at the Isle of Man. And life got in the way a bit, so we haven’t been around race bikes so much this year. But we still feel a small part of the team and always follow TTC on the BSB card, and this week on Manx Radio and the ITV4 coverage. At some point we’ll get down to a BSB race, but part of me is quite enjoying watching the racing from the warmth (and dryness) of my own home 🙂

Most of the fantastic photos in this set are by Jordan McLachlan. Tea-making and stand-in riding honors often went to Michael Neeves and the glamour (and Pot Noodles) of the team was regularly brought by Emily Riches. Paul Berryman gets the ~~blame~~ credit for getting me into it in the first place. Happy times 🙂

12th June 2015

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Berlin, The Prodigy and Bagdad Bistro

We booked flights to Berlin pretty late, once we decided we wanted to go and see The Prodigy there. I didn’t really know what to expect, and in typical style I hadn’t looked into it at all, so it was all a pretty big surprise once we got there.

We flew into and out of Schönefeld Airport, which was the airport for East Berlin during the Cold War. It definitely felt like it had been around for a while! But with hand luggage only, getting through the airport was easy and we jumped on the train into town.

Our hotel was pretty near Alexanderplatz, which is a main public square in the area of Mitte. So we got off the train there and walked down about half a mile to the Radisson Blu Hotel. The hotel was really good value when we booked it online and we were immediately impressed with it. Not least with the mahoosive fish tank in the middle of the atrium – and the nice looking cocktail bar beneath it!

The sun was shining so we headed straight out for lunch, though we didn’t venture very far. Our hotel had a lovely restaurant right on the river front, so we whiled away a couple of hours eating lunch in the sun and watching the world go by. Being able to sit outside for the first time this year was a big treat – we were really lucky with the weather.

We walked up to The Brandenburg Gate after lunch, which was a nice walk up through the Museum district, and we got a cab back for cocktails and cake in our hotel, before a snooze and then dinner!

On Saturday we walked our feet off. Leaving on foot from the hotel we set off without a plan and walked, and walked, with only a stop for brunch in between! We also jumped on the train a few stops a couple of times and went to see Checkpoint Charlie. We also walked the length of a remaining section of the Berlin Wall, which is covered in amazing street art. We lunched near-ish to the hotel and that’s where I discovered Aperol Spritz!

We knew the band were on about half nine so we left in good time to get to the venue, which was the Velodrom, about 10km away. We collected our passes ok, and found our way backstage so we could say hello to Keith and see the band come on and we were able to watch the gig from the side of the stage. I’ve seen The Prodigy before but this was the first live hearing of tracks from the new album ‘The Day is My Enemy’ played – and they sounded pretty awesome. It’s definitely a different view of 12,000 people going mental from the stage, than being down there in it !

After the gig we had a quick chat with Keith then left to find a cab – and food. We got a drink back at the hotel, and a top tip from the barman to head to Burgermeister – a burger bar in an old converted public toilet – which apparently did great burgers and chilli chips. So we jumped in a cab and off we went at midnight, in search of Burgermeister.

Luckily our cab driver had been well briefed by the barman and we were soon there. But rather than a burger, our eye was caught by the ‘Bagdad Bistro’, and amazing looking place selling fresh meat, with breads and salads. Yes, kebabs, but not as I know them. We ordered two and beers and I can honestly say it was the best kebab I’ve ever had. Perfect, sitting in the middle of all the Berlin clubbers and nightgoers eating and drinking after a great gig.

We flew back on Sunday morning and were home in time to put our feet up Sunday afternoon and relax before work the next day.

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16th April 2015

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