My dad gave me the above photograph as I am interested in local history, and I enjoy finding pictures of buildings that aren't there anymore. The Commodore was a 1920s cinema, that in its later life became a caberet venue. The blue car to the right is parked in front of a door leading up to a function room where my paternal grandparents held their silver wedding anniversary, which I have on video and DVD, (taken from a cine film so effectivly a silent movie starring younger versions of my nana, dad, Uncle Pete, various other family members, and my late grandad).

The venue itself was a regular haunt of my parents during their courtship, back when it was still called 'courtship'. I have in my archive a leaflet detailing what would nowadays be called a gig guide, advertising Tommy Cooper as the highlight of that particular period. My parents went to see Tommy Cooper, imagine that. Imagine the comedy legend Tommy Cooper, he of the hilarious ITV series (the words 'hilarious' and 'ITV' don't often get the chance to appear together), the brilliantly crafted comedy magic tricks, the ability to make people laugh before he had even started talking, and Eric Sykes's co-star in the legendary comedy film The Plank, appearing in your home town. Well my dad will tell you that he was crap. Late on stage, pissed up, and bumbling around, the audience laughed out of duty, because it was Tommy Cooper.

If you aren't familiar with Nottingham, you may be wondering what they use the building for these days. The short answer is that they don't, because it isn't there any more. Nottingham City Council, bunch of vandals that they are, did what they always do, (I know they weren't the only ones guilty of this, but I live with the damage they have done so it's the most personal to me), and knocked it down. Today, if you go looking for the art deco splendour of The Commodore, you will instead see this...

I didn't have the time or the inclination to go and take the above photo, so I lifted it from the internet. Although it's a slightly different angle, the front doors are in almost exactly the same place if that helps to figure it out.

The Commodore is remembered by those of a certain age as a caberet venue of what is sometimes referred to as the 'scampi in a basket' end of live entertainment. Comperes wearing dinner suits with ruffled shirts, dancing girls, a magician producing a rabbit out of a top hat, and a band. The tables would be set out in what we still today call caberet style, and your food and drinks would be brought to your table. Younger readers, the tables also carried a thing called an ashtray, something you might not even know about. The whole night was inclusive, maybe apart from the bar, but you certainly ate and saw a show for the entry fee.

Documentry footage of such occasions isn't as easy to find as music hall, most links lead me to The Wheeltappers and Shunter's Social Club, which is slightly different. A few years ago, I toyed quite seriously with the idea of trying to revive this form of entertainment. To add to the ambiance, I wanted to do it in a hotel, as they have the room. I even had a cool name for it; 21st Century Scampi, referencing both the modern approach, and the roots of the idea. It would have worked too, if I could have got the hotels to understand what it was that I wanted. 

My idea was to have an entry fee covering a meal and show, a modern version of the sort of line up you'd get at these things consisting of a compere, various speciality acts, and a band. Britain's Got Talent has proved that variety is still very much in vogue, so I was surre that I wouldn't have a problem setting something like this up.

I spoke to a couple of hotels, one simply didn't want any part of it and one thought it was a great idea. Although they thought it a brilliant idea, they didn't seem to understand that I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible with the tickets not costing more than a fiver if I could manage. The person I spoke to said that they would have to provide a meal for everyone who attended. I said yes, but it would only be short order cooking; steaks, scampi in a basket, that sort of thing. My dad refers to the 1970s menu as 'soup, steak, ice-cream', which is the model I was working towards. I was told that they would decide on the food available, and that it would cost at least ten pound a head. Suddenly, I realised that they weren't really singing from the same hymm sheet at all. If I had to charge a tenner just for the food, the whole idea was doomed, as I would then have to pile on the entertainment and advertising costs, making my value night out anything but cheap. So 21st Century Scampi never happened, and probably never will.

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