I was playing the BBC Club in Central London tonight (the place where BBC employees hang out and socialise) - on the day that redundancies and the unimaginable sell-off of TV Centre had been announced (have these people no respect for Roy Castle's record breaking tap dance around the fountain? I hope that that at least will not be redeveloped and as a tribute to him they have a never ending tribute where tapdancers tapdance on the fountain 24 hours a day until the end of time. And also as a tribute to the Macwhirter Twins they replace the statue in the middle with a golden effigy of Hitler stamping on anyone who isn't white and anyone who doesn't have a photographic memory).
I thought it would be a tough gig as the audience hadn't paid (directly at least - "we pay to be members of the club" had been the pedantic heckle when the compere pointed this out - the point is that if people haven't invested anything in the gig itself then it can often be hard to get their attention). Indeed they were a bit chatty through some of the other acts, but Paul Kerensa the compere did a good job of settling them down and getting them to shut up a bit. He has written
a blog of his experience of the night.
When I came on I said,"Sorry to hear about the sackings and all that. I might help you protest it, but then I didn't see any of you doing anything when the BBC sacked me, so screw you! They came for the comedians and I did nothing, because I'm not a comedian. Then they came for me. There were no comedians left to help me."
They took all this in good heart and the gig was quite a nice one. messed around a bit, either berating them for not giving me enough work or begging for more and picking on a perfectly inoffensive young woman in the front row who was clearly reviewing me for some inhouse publication. She told me what she had written and it was something along the lines of "intelligent material. You have to think about what he's said." I attempted a sarcastic rejoinder along the lines of that one would hope one does have to think when you hear someone else speak, though it didn't quite fly. It was sweet to see this supportive reviewer squirm in her seat though. And wholly unfair as she was clearly enjoying herself.
It was strange to return here though as the Club is right next door to Western House where we used to do the Andrew Collings show and in the few months that I've been away another huge bit of Broadcasting House has been razed to the ground. It wasn't quite as unsettling as the destruction of
Langham Street but it was still strange to see the building change. I may be wrong but I think I was around when they were building the bit that has now been knocked down. That makes me feel old, to have witnessed the entire life of a part of building.
The BBC is changing. I wonder what will become of the old girl.
