Morecambe The Platform Saturday April 14th

I’m still buzzing the adrenaline of last might’s show as we jump in the vans and set off on the long old poke up to Morecambe, and fuelled by a single can of Red Bull, it’s way beyond Manchester before the stealthy fingers of fatigue start to gently squeeze my eyeballs and blur my vision. Even the van seems to have acquired a new lease of life, and she roars happily up the motorway at something approximating normal speed. Behind us, Nick’s faithfully kept pace the whole way, but as we see the signs for Charnock Richard services, my mobile buzzes, and there’s a text from him. It contains the single word “Piss”. Ascertaining that this cryptic message presages an urgent need for the old boy to micturate, I turn off and pull in to the services. I see his door open and am about to ask if I’d guessed correctly when a streak of something black and hairy and trailing the heady scent of Eau De Marlboro Lights flashes by me at almost supersonic velocity. Stunned, I turn to see what this dark missile could be, just in time to see Nick’s back disappearing into the Gents. He’s in there a very long time indeed, and I muse just how long he’d been gritting his teeth and crossing his legs. When it comes to driving, I’m convinced that Nick is actually an alien. These days, after a couple of hours behind the wheel I normally feel myself growing a little torpid, and so these night drives we’re doing are a killer. Nick, however, will drive forever, seemingly without fatigue or distraction. Just give him Radio 2 and packet of fags, spark up Doris the Sat Nav and point him in the right direction, and he’s as happy as a sandboy ( whatever one of those may be ). Eventually, the main vein having been fully drained, he comes out with a spring in his step and a big dopey grin on his chops, then immediately orders an enormous tea and starts refilling. Odd boy. We’re all pretty jaded as we finally pull onto Morecambe sea front and run along to The Platform to find the bus……still not there. This isn’t good, but a phone call to John confirms that he’s just three miles away, so I say I’ll go out into the road and show him where to turn. Now that, Faithful Blogreader, is a very easy sentence to say. In practise it was a very hard thing to do. Whilst it’s not hosing down with icy rain as it was last time we were here, it’s still 5.45am on the west coast of England on a very cold April morning. I’m in my obligatory shorts and a fleece. The wind off Morecambe Bay has surely got “ Made In Siberia” stamped on it somewhere, because it’s bitter. It’s also relentless, and manages to find it’s way into every chin k in the inadequate armour of my clothing. Most specifically, it blows up the legs of my shorts and shrivels my undercarriage. I’ve already mentioned mini cocktail sausages. This time, however, it’s worse. As I’d “ gone commando” after my shower at Bedford, there’s not even a thin layer of cotton to protect the chaps from this wintry blast. This time we’re talking, say, an acorn and a couple of Maltesers. My ‘nads are, in fact, so cold they’re frantically trying to return to those happy pre-pubescent days of yore and clamber back up inside my body where at least it’s a BIT warmer than hanging around out here. If last night was a peak, then this is the absolute nadir. Tired, freezing and miserable, I reflect on my life and wonder what happened to that once-promising career. How did that happy, ambitious young tour manager end up (literally) freezing his nuts off on a godforsaken piece of Lancastrian coastline ? The sight of the Flying Bogey trundling up the prom makes me almost sob with relief, and we get John in and parked up without further ado. Turns out he’d been blocked in by the carelessly-abandoned cars of the booze and drug-addled scum who populate Bedford’s pubs and clubs, and hadn’t been able to get out until one am. He ended up having to take the registration numbers of some of these cars as he needed the assistance of the police to get them moved, so I ask for these numbers and vow to hunt down the thoughtless bastards and murder them in their beds, ideally by carelessly parking my car on their vacuous heads. It’s warm on the bus and as the life slowly stars to return to my nethers I briefly consider speeding the process up by lowering everything into a bowl of warm water, but in time I remind myself that extreme temperature changes tend to make things very brittle, so I settle for just curling up in my bunk until the circulation has returned to the Deep South. Exhausted, I again fall asleep lying flat on my back, and commence the animal impersonation known to the others as
“ The Roaring Walrus “. I can’t help it, lads, sorry……About ten seconds later, or so it seems, I’m awake again. As we’re parked outside a pub and restaurant, there’s only one thing to do…Full English ! Pug and I chow down eagerly, but not TOO eagerly as we know the vans are being unloaded right now ! There’s another new face of the team today; due to a prior commitment, Junior can’t do today’s show, so we’ve enlisted the help of our good buddy Ben Dorrington, soundman extraordinaire and all round top bloke. Ben arrives looking incredibly fit and healthy, and on being quizzed about this modestly admits that he’s running the London Marathon next weekend. I worriedly scan his face for signs of insanity but can’t find a single one, just the calm, focused determination of the person who has got a purpose and a goal. And two legs which work properly, which is always a bonus, I find. Exhausted just from hearing about it, I stagger into the venue. The Platform, you may recall, Faithful Blogreader, is the old railway station building, specifically one of the platforms ( wonder how they came up with THAT name ??) and it’s a bit odd but good at the same time. It’s got a glass roof so the sound can be a bit lively, but Pug will be fine, just as Arthur was last year. Rather sadly, it hasn’t sold as well as last year for some reason.’ But we’re gloomily coming to accept that this is the story right across the UK; theatre business overall is down by a significant percentage and the question is what to do about it…but that’s a topic for another day. We’re all set and ready for showtime when something patently obvious begins to dawn on us. When we played here last year, it was about three weeks earlier, and certainly before the clocks had gone forward. What this slightly later date means is that, with just five minutes to go until showtime, it’s broad daylight outside which, because of the glass roof, means it’s also broad daylight inside. We can see every face in the audience and every nook and cranny in the venue. What we CAN’T see is anything being projected onto the screen or anything that the lights are doing. This means that the opening montage is a collection of vague shapes on the screen, and instead of taking their places onstage in the dark ready for the first number, the lads have to shuffle on in full view and try to be as unobtrusive as possible. The same thing happens after Go Now, when they change instruments for Not Fade Way, and when they do the clothes change during Pretty Woman. It’s decidedly odd, but the saving grace is that the crowd, relatively sparse though it may be, is fully engaged and making a decent amount of noise. Even odder for the crew is that there are no comms in the building, so we can’t talk to each other as normal. This means I can’t cue the video inserts and the blackouts as normal, so Rodders is totally on his own with this. Fortunately he knows the show well enough by now to handle it, but it all feels oddly dislocated and distant. Luckily darkness falls before the end of the first half, so something approaching normal service is resumed by the time the lads go back onstage. In the end it’s not a bad little gig at all, and the crowd is suitably appreciative. The only complaint was from a biddy in the front row who asked us to switch off the smoke machine as it “ plays ‘avoc wi’ me asthma “ We smile sweetly and avoid pointing out to the daft bat that the smoke fluid is totally water-based and contains no chemical elements whatsoever that could affect any medical conditions ( I’m mildly asthmatic myself and yet night after night I sit in clouds of the stuff ). Everyone else seems to have loved it, even though there’s a pure Spinal Tap moment after the show; the merchandise area is way over in the corner of the room and we genuinely don’t think people had noticed that the band had gone over there to meet and greet afterwards. I glance over and the five of them are standing forlornly with Nick, for all the world like The Tap when they’re at the deserted record store signing with hapless record company man Artie Fufkin. It only takes a couple of people to spot them and folks gradually start to drift over, but it WAS chucklesome for a moment. We load out quickly and grab a shower, then it’s out to the bus for a blissful night of non-travelling sleep; the venue have agreed to let us stay here until the morning. Ben’s done a grand job and joins us for a swift ale before heading off into the Morecambe dark, but Steve’s in full comedy flow tonight, and despite my best intentions to have an early night, we’re still chortling away at two a.m. I’m going to pay for this tomorrow……