Live Show: Brighton the Musical

I ran and compered The Crocodile Comedy Club at the original Concorde Bar on Brighton seafront from 1990 to 1996. There would be 3 acts, mostly from London, and an open spot - some nervous wannabe trying to get his leg over the comedy ladder. The club ran on a Thursday night and was almost always sold out. 250 bodies in a creaky old room with a ceiling so low you could touch it with your hand. The atmosphere in that room is still fondly remembered today by those punters who laughed at a fledgling Bill Bailey and a plump Eddie Izzard, or booed off the open spot (The League of Gentlemen were cruelly dismissed). It was a bit of a lions den was The Croc - and that was the very reason everyone loved it so much.

At the end of every show I would sing a song about Brighton or one of the surrounding areas. I would change the words to a well know song and get one of me mates to stick together a backing track. Right from the very first one, ‘Worthing’ (The Troggs’ ‘Wild Thing’), the idea was a winner. Slowly the repertoire grew until there were enough for me to do a solo show based around the songs. And so was planted the seed for Brighton the Musical.

The 22nd of June, 1996. The day England beat Spain, after a nail biting penalty shootout, to qualify for the semi-finals of the European Football Championships. It was also the date of the very first performance of Brighton the Musical, in The Concorde Bar, and the show was sold out. What happened I cannot recall, but no one got hurt! Over the following 12 months I performed the show 15 times at that venue.

When The Croc came to an end the show had to find a new venue - The Brighton Centre! Not the concert hall, but the 650 seater Hewison Room. Still, I had my name on the front of the building in big letters and that was all that mattered. It also signalled an important turning point for the show because it had to change in order to hold a much larger, less intimate audience. So I began to write more and more songs.

Over the next couple of years there were half-a-dozen sold out Gardner Centre performances. One 'special' audience was for the Brighton Councillors no less who, once they had told me to "Fuck off Baldy", really got into the spirit of things.