Logan Murray & Alison Goldie - The Monkhouse Jan 18 1988

The Monkhouse Comedy Club in Leicester started 1988 with a double bill of Logan Murray and Alison Goldie, supported by the regular line-up of locals, myself and Alan Seaman, Cathi Rae and Norman The Skiver (who will be celebrating his 80th birthday in 2016, I have learned. Let's have a party).

Logan Murray is still going strong on the comedy circuit and is well respected as a teacher of comedy too, having taught everyone from Rhod Gilbert and Kayvan Novak to half the guests on Mock The Week and all of We Are Klang (see his website for details).

Alison Goldie is also big on the teaching front, describing herself as a coach for creativity, work and love.

The figures on the poster, however, are neither Logan nor Alison because, clearly, I didn't have photos of them at the time. Being the days before the internet, unless I was posted a black and white 10 x 8 print through the snail mail which, over the Christmas and New Year period was clearly harder to arrange than usual, then I had to improvise. The characters shown with their faces blanked out are John Dowie and a member of Cliffhanger Theatre (most likely Rebecca Stevens), from their play James Bond Licenced To Look Ill, at Brighton's Zap Club. I can't find the original photo online, but here's another one from that same show.

You can find Logan and Alison on Twitter (as @LoganComedyGuru and @ladyinbed). But don't look for The Monkhouse, it's not there any more.

Handle & Dropkirk - by me at an unknown age

Clearing out under a bed back at Mum's house over Christmas 2015 we found a whole load of artwork, including Hev's work from art college and some comic strips by me that I've not seen for years. This was by far the earliest piece.

Though most work was from my late teens and student days, this one picture has survived, drawn and painted by me at an age I can't quite pin down. Because it references Randall and Hopkirk (which was on ITV from September 1969 to March 1970) and Star Trek (on BBC between July 1969 and December 1971) I'd say this is from 1970, making me 8 or 9 years old. However there was a 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea movie made by Disney in 1973, and I remember reading the comics version of it in Donald & Mickey comic, so if I'm referencing that, this would be from when I'm 11 years old. But I'd like to think I was better than this by then. We may never know.

The Sea Monster? - The Monkhouse Dec 2 1987

Who was The Sea Monster? It's almost as important a question as why was she in the support slot? Though I'm sure Mandy Knight was brilliant, that enigmatic Sea Monster was one of the funniest comedians any of us had ever seen and was to go on to greatness. If you don't know who she was, you may star guessing now. Answer below.

This was the Monkhouse Club's fourth monthly show, with Alan Seaman booking the acts and the two of us sharing the compering. Cathi Rae and Norman the Skiver were by now well established as regular local acts, and since none of us was yet above the level of open-mics, the two headline acts were really what people came to see. 

It wasn't our first Christmas show ever, as I've found records of us staging a Christmas special as long ago as 1985, when the show was still calling itself the Magazine Jokespace, but was the first under the Monkhouse brand. Here's that far-less prepossesing poster.

Black Annis in Pantomime and the Touch & Go Arts Co-Operative? Truly the 1980s were a foreign country, they did comedy clubs differently then. John Dull was the name of the character act Alan Seaman was doing, until he finally got round to just using his own name.

The Monkhouse name was my idea, spawned because we thought it sounded funny, and it paid ironic homage to Bob Monkhouse who, at that time, was deeply unfashionable but I think also strangely admired. The image of him comes from an ad in a 1950s Eagle comic. Since you ask.

And the Sea Monster was...?

Jo Brand. She worked under an alias for her early gigs because she was still holding down her job as a psychiatric nurse.

Tinky Winky's Debut - The Monkhouse Nov 16 1987

Long long ago, before Tinky Winky wasn even a twinkle winkle in anyone's eye, the 3rd month of The Monkhouse comedy club in Leicester, in November 1987, saw the debut of Igor Thomson. Aka Dave Thomson. Aka Tinky Winky.

His Wikipedia page is very big on his appearance in Harry Hill's Hooves tour and Ben Elton's Maybe Baby, but manages to make no mention whatsoever of his two appearances at Leicester's Monkhouse Club. Come on posterity, prioritise.

Brenda Gilhooly has also appeared in Harry Hill's shows. appearing as various characters in TV Burp, while remaining most famous as the irrepressible Gayle Tuesday.

Alan, Norman, Cathi and I provided the reliable local act back-line, as we did every month. Sometime I must get round to telling you more about them all.

Lindsay Moran - The Monkhouse Oct 19 1987

If you're ever going to ask "Where are they now?", you should be asking it about Lindsay Moran. I don't know how Alan stumbled upon him (Alan Seaman booked the acts for our fledgling club, using the technology of the 1980s, which now seems akin to alchemy in its unimaginability) but we were glad he did.

A total hit, with his tutu and accordion, Lindsay Moran was the sort of comic novelty act that possibly only the 1980s could produce. Visual and surreal, satirical and whimsical, he was an act who one assumed would eventually end up on TV, although that was something that was only beginning to happen, and not everyone. As it was, I spotted him in an advert or two, but not much more.

Googling Linday Moran, I uncover a clandestine CIA Officer first, which is nice but unhelpful.

Rather more reassuringly, a Google of Lindsay Moran Artist uncovers a successful artist and printmaker, far better suited to that world than what the stand up comedy arena was about to become in the subsequent decade.

Lindsay Moran, at one of his exhibitions, circa 2013. Tutu, we assume, just out of shot.

Marc Soda became Marc Blake. We'll probably hear more about him anon.

It was Gil Kane - Oct 9 1977

I was right, it was Gil Kane! 37 years later I'm vindicated. Well, 37 years later I can be sure of what was already bleeding obvious to me when I was 15.

I'm drawn this centrespread, copying from an illustration in a Marvel weekly reprint. And, as you can see, the editor had credited it as being by Jim Starlin and Klaus Janson. Whereas, as any fule kno, it's very clearly a Jim Starlin drawing, inked by Klaus Janson.

I marvel to this day that I can recognise these things at first glance, but that's what comic readers of my generation can do. We can tell which producer has made a record, we can identify individual guitarists playing the solos, and we know our comic artists at a glimpse. It is nigh on impossible to mistake Jim Starlin for Gil Kane, George Perez for Neal Adams, Barry Smith for John Buscema, Gene Colan for Jack Kirby, and so on. If those names mean anything to you, you're probably in the same boat. If they don't, well that's the shame of twentieth century art history, that comic books never got taken as seriously as most other art forms.

Mind you, as geek pedants go, I'm hardly in the highest echelon, as you can see from my spelling of "Dr Who". I was clearly all about the visuals.

Records For The Day: Golden Earrings by The Enid,Love Bug by Tina Charles, Live In Trouble by The Barron Knights, Rocking All Over The World by Status Quo, and Sleeping Late by Dr Hook.






Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).

Hattie Hayridge - the First Monkhouse 21 Sept 1987

The Monkhouse comedy club launched on September 21st 1987 at the Magazine Pub, Newarke Street, Leicester, Don't look for it, it's not there anymore.

For the first and only time Alan and I took out an advert in the Leicester Mercury. And for the first and only time nobody turned up. Although the Monkhouse was going to go on to great success over the coming two years, its opening night was a washout. I have memories of us sitting round chatting with Hattie Hayridge - who come to play at the massive expense of £25, the going rate for headliners in 1987 - and Arnold Bolt, local comedy hero, who was probably playing for a doorsplit.

This wasn't our first effort at staging comedy shows at the Magazine. It had formerly been known as The Magazine Jokespace, run by The Great Alphonse and the Handsome Herbert, two actors who had been working at Phoenix Arts, across the road. Alan and I discovered it in the summer of 1984, and started appearing regularly in the Autumn of 84, when it was being run by Cathy Dunning, who went on 15 years later to co-create The Weakest Link. After Cathy moved on, the club was run by Julie Jokespace (whose surname I have only ever remembered as Jokespace) under the name Witsend. How successful those shows were I can't recall, but if this poster designed by me is anything to go by, it's amazing that it dragged in more punters than the fabulously well-promoted first night of The Monkhouse.