Betty Spital - The Monkhouse

Betty Spital is easily found on Amazon, courtesy of The Thoughts of Betty Spital: Pensioner, Activist and Radical Granny, but that's written by a Christopher Meade. I'm pretty sure the Radical Pensioner who played our club at the start of 1989 was a middle aged woman.

To be honest I'm drawing a blank, both in the memory banks and on Google. Maybe Betty Spital was Christopher Meade. I'm sure someone will tell me.



The illustration on the poster is, of course, Mrs Brady Old Lady from Viz, but you knew that. Viz, you will recall, was very big in 1989, being only 10 years into people telling it that it wasn't as funny as it used to be. In December 1989 it became the 2nd best selling magazine in the country, second only to Radio Times, selling over a million copies. Did I mention my strip, Tarquin Hoyley He Has To Go To The Toilet, was in it a couple of times? You'll find them in the Big Pink Stiff One book. I don't get royalties.

As for googling Post Glasnost, forget it. The best I get is a comedy series from 1991 called Sleepers, a "post-glasnost comedy" starring Warren Clarke and Nigel Havers. Probably brilliant, but most likely not the comedy act that graced our above-the-pub smokey Leicester club in the frozen wastes of January 1989.

Igor Thompson - The Monkhouse Feb 20 1989

If there was ever a contender for the title of Nicest Man In Comedy, it would have to be Dave Thompson. Or, as he was billed back in 1989 when he headlined at The Monkhouse Club, Igor Thompson.

Dave is best known, by many, as Tinky Winky. I'm sure he's got over it now, but for a long time Dave couldn't go anywhere without being reminded of the time that he was sacked from the Teletubbies because, bizzarely, his "interpretation of the role was not acceptable".



Here Dave headlined a line-up who, I'm afraid, evade my researches. Theatro D'Existentiale, if you google them, turn up the suggestion "did you mean teatro di existentiale?". Which, when you opt for it, turns up infinite articles in French and Italian about subjects from Beckett to the Journal of Anthropology, but nothing I can find about a performance troupe who'd have graced the stage of a Leicester comedy club in the late 80s.

UPDATE: After sharing this blog post on Twitter, Charmian Hughes has responded to say that she was Teatro D'Existentiale (I seem to have mis-spelled their name on the poster). She Tweets that she "invented teatro after getting into trouble with theatre de complicite for breaking mime vow of silence". So now you know.

 Eddie, sadly, one needn't even start googling. Memory doesn't serve as to his performance, or indeed his existence. And no I'm pretty sure it wasn't a stand up set by Iron Maidens' skeletal mascot.

Lindsay Moran Comic Relief - The Monkhouse Feb 88

Comic Relief began its biennial TV tradition in 1988 and we at the Monkhouse were there to jump on the bandwagon and be part of charity fundraising history. At two quid a ticket I can't imagine what a help we were to the cause.

As our star act we brought back Lindsay Moran, who'd been a total hit in our October 87 show, and if memory serves he didn't disappoint this time. As for Graham Summers and Bodgers Mate, I think they may have been friends of local comedy legend Arnold Bolt.



If this is the same Bodger's Mate, then they survive to this day as a working Ceilidh Band. Graham Summers would appear to be in a folk band called Just The Dust. So our first, and indeed only, Comic Relief line-up was lighter on the comedy and heavier on the folk than later bills might be.

This is a good reminder of how recently the "alternative" comedy scene of the 1980s had grown out of the thriving Folk Club scene of the 60s and 70s which had given us such names as Jasper Carrott, Max Boyce and Billy Connolly, long before the notion of a Comedy Club as we knew it was even a twinkle in a jongleur's eye.

Also musicians were more prepared than comedians to play for free.

Review of the year - December 30th 1976

On the penultimate day of 1976 I looked back at the year, and amazingly found something worth writing about.

January was all exams, February I got flu and watched the Winter Olympics from my sick bed, March nothing much. April seems to have been the biggie, the school ski-ing trip to Italy, which I do indeed still remember 40 years on. Our band also made its debut performance, under the temporary name Mercury.



May's high point was inheriting 400 Scorcher comics, which I eventually returned to their original owner Dave Lyon earlier this year; June seems rather diary-self-obsessed, and July and August were the legendary heatwave. September I started at a new school, October I'm fascinated by TV and comics, November nothing to say, and December the band plays again and I start a comic strip which, 40 years later, I have yet to finish.

Wow. The best years of your life can seem pretty dull when you sum them up. No wonder I put so much detail into the decorations of the diary pages. And check out the most popular Record For The Day of 1976. Laurie Lingo and the Dipsticks? Dave Lee bloody Travis? Bring on punk, I say.







Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

Christmas Day 1976

Merry Christmas everyone! Here is my teenage diary from Christmas Day 1976, full to the brim with the presents I got and the TV I watched. I think Christmas telly has improved in the last 40 years. As for pressies? What can improve on the the Look-In and Willy The Kid annuals, two Stan Lee Origins Of Marvel Comics books, and the Album Of The Soundtrack Of The Trailer Of The Film Of Monty Python And The Holy Grail? Not a lot, that's what.



Actually the TV wasn't that bad. Morecambe and Wise & Parkinson were still on the BBC, Bruce Forsyth was still on the Generation Game, Christmas Top Of The Pops was on just like it should be, and Airport and Oliver qualified as New-To-TV movies. And then, just as now, ITV either hadn't bothered or we'd forgotten it existed.  God bless us every one.

I didn't feature my usual Record For The Day on Christmas Day, instead listing the records that I got as presents. The album, Queen's Day At The Races, doesn't get its mention till Boxing Day. But here are all three treats.








Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

Kneeling? What's that about? - October 21st 1976

An odd entry this, because I hadn't posted it up here on the blog until the BBC People's History Of Pop asked for a scan of it, following the interview I did with them earlier in the year. So this is clearly one of the spreads I thumbed through and read from, but not one that I'd uploaded yet. I can only remember referring to the passage about kneeling.


It reads "Lunchtime: Nick & I went to the music rooms and met some of those friendly fifth years. At least Nick did some kneeling - and if there hadn't been three of them...". So it would appear we were being bullied in the fourth year, and for the life of me I have no memory it whatsoever. I haven't read the earlier entries which might give us more of a picture of what was going on. I shall have investigate.

My Records For The Day, which is where People's History Of Pop's interest in my diary comes from, are outstandingly unmemorable. Does anyone remember The Coffee Song by Osibisa or One Love In My Lifetime by Diana Ross?

Captain Britain meets Captain Genocide - October 13th 1976

"And that definitely is our new name!!" Rarely has a sentence been less accurate and more long-forgotten. I do not remember our band ever being called Captain Genocide (as legend recalls, we spent most of our time known as Walter Tottle). And I have no memory of a song called Mary. If anyone remembers better, and even better if the song was ever committed to tape, then I'd love to hear about it.

And elsewhere in this diary entry we find evidence of school bullying, which I'd also long since erased from my memory. "Nick and I sang his new song in the Music Rooms when in came three fifth years. Guess who got two fists in the stomach and resisted the temptation to crush the three of them?" Oh bless my little cotton socks. Such restraint. (The story continues in this October 21st entry)

Much more memorable is the subsequent music lesson where we found that, to any classical music - or whatever Mrs Blob chose to play us - we could sing "Nick Nacky Nick Nack Nicky Nacky Noo". And did.

Captain Britain was a new comic, about whose arrival I was very excited, and here was my first attempt at drawing him. I've gotten better. 

Records For The Day, our own "Mary" by "Captain Genocide" notwithstanding, and classics - Climax Blues Band and Joan Armatrading, a good week for new singles.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre do Shakespeare played at the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe August 2016. On Tour through Spring 2017.