St Helens Theatre Royal Sun March 12th

Another short hop today, so because the nice Oakengates people let us stay here again last night, we have a mini lie - in and mooch off about 11.00am. All is going swimmingly until we actually get to St Helens. The area around the theatre is very Coronation Street-esque, which in itself isn't a problem; what IS a problem is that someone's dropped a pedestrian precinct right in the middle of the road we want to go down, and there's an impenetrable one-way system which renders these serried rows of terraced houses completetly identical. It takes us an hour to find the theatre, and even then we can only reach it by reversing the bus and vans the wrong way down a one-way street, much to the chagrin of an old git washing his clapped - out car in the street. " This is a one-way street you know " he huffs. " We're only going one way", replies Nick, which gives rise to an outburst of indignation that I shan't dignify by repeating here. By now we're an hour late, we're struggling to get the vehicles in, and I've had enough of matey and his puffed - up histrionics. I must admit that I let fly with a stream of the most corrosive epithets, whch culminated in telling him that if they had some blinking decent road signs in this blinking place then we wouldn't need to blinking reverse down his blinking road. Except I may not actually have said blinking. Once at the theatre we quickly make up the time as Mike and Pete the house guys are great. The only real downer with tonight is that we know this is the lowest-selling show oh the whole tour, and I must admit it makes vibing yourself up to do the best possible show a bit of an effort. Everyone digs in, though, and soundcheck is got out of the way without incident. The theatre also has a very narrow proscenium arch which makes siting the musisians so that they don't disappear into the wings a bit of a challenge, but this gets overcome too, and by the time showtime comes around the atmosphere backstage is actually pretty good. I must say here that the band have handled the whole adaptation to tour bus life really well...they're not normally used to arriving at venue until just before soundcheck, or even later in some cases, but on this tour they get there when the rest of us do. That means they've got a lot of time to themselves but they've used it well; some of them explore the town we're in, some read, some just go for a walk. In the case of Jamie, he sleeps. Oh my goodness, how the boy sleeps. In fact, he can be such a sloth I've considered putting a tree trunk along the length of the bus and letting him hang upside down from it. He's the Rip Van Winkle of the Bootleg Sixties show and no mistake, but even THIS is good....the more rest he and Den get, the better we can protect their voices. I must admit than in touring days when my time at the venue wasn't so filled with poo as it is now, I was similarly inclined, and was to be found in my bunk at every available opportunity. There's a lot to be said for rest, mind, especially when you get to my age ! So on to the show, and it's one of those odd ones...the people who are here love it, but there's not many of them in so it's all just so QUIET ! This definitely makes things more difficult for the band, especially on the links, where they're used to more audience response. It's not that people aren't getting the jokes, it's just that their laughter is largely lost in the theatre, but as we've always said, it doesn't matter whether there's 10, 100 or 10,00, people in the audience, they've all paid good money to get in here and see us, and so we have to put on the best show we can. The first half is hard work but goes well enough, and then we get the message back....Den's dressing room has been broken into and he's had his phone and wallet stolen.There's not really much you can do in a twenty-minute interval, but Mike gets right on the case and contacts the okice while I call T Mobile to suspend the phone service. He's insured, so that's a good thing, but if you're anything like me and carry your life in your mobile then you'll appreciate how much of a nightmare this is, even more than the theft of the money. For me the most amazing thing is that he can then go onstage and start the second half with, of all the ironic titles, Feeling Groovy, which he quite clearly isn't. In fact you'd never think anything untoward had happened at all, as he gives it his usual 100%, but after the show he's one pissed - off puppy. The polioe arrive to make a report and give a crime number but despite their politeness you can't help but feel this is something they've seen a grillion times up here, and they know as surely as we do that none of the stolen items will ever be recovered. On top of the low turnout it puts a really bad spin on the evening, so we just move into fifth gear and get out of the theatre and then the town as quickly as we can. I'm carrying a spare mobile with me which I offer to Den, but as it takes a degree in astrophysics to even work out how to make a simple call, he sensibly declines, and opts to sort something out at the T Mobile shop in Scunthorpe tomorrow. This could be another venue to add to the " Stockport FIle " as it's become known.....