onionbagblog

A freezing Friday night in Wivenhoe and whaddya know - @AnnaJCowen and I only ended up back on campus.

Blimey.

The *ahem* ‘warmth and hospitality’ (booze…) of The Greyhound was just too convenient. Time to explore, time to head back to the future at Essex University.

The lovely Lakeside Theatre was lined up, and in particular, the regular Comedy Central Live gig in the rather splendid space that is the refurbished theatre underneath the library.

Gym Bunnies were burning away those Friday night calories as we walked down through campus; some extra studious Essex students were even spending their Friday night working away in the library; muscle power and brain power - it’s what revolutions are built upon, doncta know…

But anyway - the Lakeside:

Comedy Central Live is a much welcome, um, comedy night taking place occasionally around the campus. With the Wivenhoe Funny Farm having taken a short break (but soon to be back! BACK! BACK!!!!) the campus comedy nights keep students and locals laughing.

It’s not quite Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow (and thank heavens for that) but the format is familiar. A compare warms you up and breaks the silence, before introducing some rising stars, and established names, currently working the comedy circuit.

Joe Wells was the first act on Friday, telling tales of Marxist humour and BNP bashing. Plus he had a very funny line in how to deal with bad reviews. So Joe was, um, rather ACE.

But the main reason as to why a two thirds full Lakeside audience had bypassed the SU bar, the Gym Bunnies and even the appeal of the library, was for the headline performance of the incredibly talented Simon Munnery.

This is an established comedy name, not only as a live act, but also with a proud TV and radio comedy background to boast of. The name wasn’t so established however for the hapless @AnnaJCowen, who was under the impression that we were spending our Friday evening with Simon Nunnery.

Whoops.

A guitar intro, and then we were straight into rambling tales of social etiquette and dissing Richard Dawkins. Plus you can always spot a skilled performer, when with the perfect sense of timing, Munnery/ Nunnery seamlessly incorporated a tale of Greek myths with a toilet bound audience member.

Anyone expecting to see the ace Alan Parker, Urban Warrior, wasn’t so much disappointed as grown up. Parker was perfect for the time, but that time has now moved on, and so has the performance. With Munnery now living a more rural lifestyle, the jokes (and personal parallels) have been refined.

And so two hours of witticism and warmth, and we ended up walking back down to Wivenhoe and the hospitality of The Greyhound - hurrah! It will be a lot more #hyperlocal next month, when the Wivenhoe Funny Farm returns to these parts. Thursday 16th December sees Hazel Humphreys comparing a night at the Cricket Club from 7:30 onwards.

Best keep the evening Gym Bunny and library free.

From memory, the last production I saw at the Lakeside Theatre was An Inspector Calls, sometime circa 1991. It wasn’t that the performance at the University of Essex Theatre was so bad, but a bit of a geographical detour diverting me to South London, via the City of Death, finally led to a return some nineteen years later.

A complete refurbishment has taken place in the intervening two decades. A smart new cafe entrance is located where I once smuggled books out of the Albert Sloman Library. I half expected my bag to be searched as I strolled up for the production of Richard III on Thursday evening.

I may have been almost twenty years away from the Lakeside, but a semi-interest in all things theatrical has been a tradition. We’ve been regulars for the past decade down at Bankside and The Globe. If you can stand through a challenging three hour contemporary production of Macbeth, then a Lakeside romp through Richard III should be a stroll.

Smoke from the side of the stage pre-emptied the classic “winter of discontent” opening lines. The last time I breathed in such fumes was at a Psychedelic Society Disco, in the long lost Oliver Tambo Room at the University. The refreshments on offer at the Lakeside on Thursday night weren’t quite as strong, which is just as well, given the production that lay ahead.

This was a contemporary performance of the Shakespeare tragedy. Such a term often leads to a tragic performance, but not so for the touring production from the Love and Madness Theatre Company.

With a stripped down simple set and costume approach, the language became the main focus. An outstanding lead performance from everyone’s favourite Jacobean bad boy carried the show from start to finish. Here is a classic pantomime villain that you side with from the first curtain call.

A quick interval, and by pure chance and I met up with my immediate next door neighbour.

Blimey.

We swapped and shared tales of the plot, filling in the gaps where I was too busy closing my eyes and drifting off to those Psychedelic Society Disco days. The pace for the second half of the performance increased, concluding with a Space Invaders style interpretation of the epic battle scene, just ahead of the “my horse, my horse…” closing refrains.

A brief bike ride back towards the town, and I pondered that I needed some booze to reflect upon what I had just seen. Ten minutes later and I was at The Station, propping up the bar with my other neighbour.

Blimey, blimey etc.

All the world’s a stage, especially so in The Station at chucking out time on a Thursday night.

There’s a wonderfully diverse programme of productions at the Lakeside until the end of the year. This runs all the way through until the pantomime, mid-December.

Oh no it doesn’t… Oh yes it does.

You get the idea.

The £9 ticket price for punters is reasonable, and given the proximity of the theatre right on our Wivenhoe doorstep, it’s no surprise to see so many familiar faces taking up their seats.

Or maybe it’s just a #hyperlocal neighbourly thing?

“An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.”

See ya.