Tonight was a night to go to a new venue (new to me anyway) to review a play for the Nottingham Post, the Poppy and Pint in Lady Bay was the venue but first I had to find it. Jeffery Holland (probably best known to sitcom fans as Spike in Hi-De-Hi among other things) was appearing in his self-written one man play And This Is My Friend Mr Laurel, a fictionalised account of the final conversation between Laurel and Hardy in Oliver Hardy's bedroom after suffering a stroke. I took my dad with me who also had no idea where the place was, so we had the fun of searching for a venue in an area that I was pretty unfamiliar with.
It was a fairly early start and I wouldn't have had time to go home and eat before heading back to town and doing a mystery tour so I stayed in town and had a very unsatisfactory coffee at 200 Degrees with Mandi who finished work at the same time as I did, (the coffee was very unsatisfactory not Mandi's company) before meeting my dad for the bus to wherever. We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to Lady Bay, which isn't really that far from the city centre but beyond walking distance if you don't know where you're going. Boarding the 11 from Angel Row, the safest thing to do was to ask the driver because sometimes they give you a heads-up as to which stop you need. The driver didn't know where the venue was but also didn't seem to know where the road was, so let us on the bus free of charge. My dad concluded that it was his last day at work, I wondered if he'd stolen the bus and was making a conscientious getaway, my dad then pondered that he had become so disillusioned by the life of a bus driver that he was going to stop at Trent Bridge and then jump in the river. Bob Monkhouse came to mind; "I want to die like my grandfather, peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like his passengers".
Although we got off the bus a bit too early, thanks to the helpfulness of some passers-by, (it's a more refined side of the city where people give directions rather than telling you to fuck off) we found the place. Poppy and Pint is a lovely place that seems to cater for a great deal of the local community, they do food, real ale, have a venue upstairs, and a tennis court outside so it also doubles up as a club house. I was tempted to ask if they sold tobacco and cigarettes, aspirins and stamps, and lets you use the phone.
Upstairs stages live music under the supervision of Trap 6 Events in a lovely room ideal for the mixture of comedy, theatre, and live music that it holds. At first I thought that a sensitive one man play wouldn't work upstairs in a pub but I was wrong as the show was ideally placed, despite my thinking that is was a little sad that something like this couldn't fill a 'normal' theatre. Simon and Katrina are the organisers who are doing a fantastic job there and have so far booked an impressive programme of events (as demonstrated if you click on the link). My next scheduled visit in which I will be wearing my reviewer hat isn't until October but I will hopefully finding myself there before that, especially now that I know where the place is.
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March housekeeping
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