Hospitality is known for being one of the best Drum and Bass labes out there. Also putting on events across the UK, they have built themselves to have reputation for some pretty extreme nights. Their recent 15th birthday party saw 5000 ravers descend upon Brixton Academy, and you only have to view the video:

This friday acts as the release party for the mighty Brookes Brothers, they also have the legendary Danny Byrd and Netsky DJ’in, who will surely be ones not to miss. The South Parade parties are always good fun, and with most, if not all the students finished for the year, you know it will be full to the rafters.

Keep your eyes peeled for a review following the event!

Lineup:

✖ DANNY BYRD ✖
✖ BROOKES BROTHERS [Album Launch] ✖
✖ NETSKY ✖
✖ N-TYPE ✖
✖ CYANTIFIC ✖
✖ CHARGE + TRU:BASS ✖

£13 Student (Online) £15 Other £25 Coach Price (Travel + Entry) Tkts Available Soom From: Portsmouth: Withit, Dress Code, Wedgewood Rooms Box Office Gosport: Reflex Waterlooville: Focus Southampton: Lucid.

Online: http://ticketshack.co.uk/

www.hospitalitydnb.com

By Mark Allen

For someone who was not alive in 1981 to understand this type of show, or even the emergence of the hugely successful alt-comedy of the 1980s would be difficult. Yet Stewart Lee and Paul Jackson, curators of At Last! The 1981 Show, which forms part of Stewart Lee’s Austerity Binge, managed to put together a truly memorable line up of past icons of the alt-comedy circuit  that was at times insane and at others touching.

The line-up was as eclectic as types of shows that where about to take place. Some names, like Stephen Frost, Nigel Planer, Norman Lovett, Alexei Sayles and Arthur Smith all well known to the packed house. Yet others like Kevin McAleer, Pauline Melville, Andrew Bailey, and Arnold Brown brought stunning routines that remained as fresh today as they did in 1981.

Rather than simply try to do a show that was stuck in the 1980s each of the acts, who where given about 10 minutes each, managed to use most of the material of their original stand-up sets but also updated it with references to the ConDem coalition, the internet, and Osama Bin Laden.

However the night was full of irony in that these types of comics, the time and place of Thatcherite Britain, the strikes, and society have all changed, yet many of the same issues still remain. Many of the comics are now very rich (or well richer than they where in the 1980s) and as quick as it started it seems that alt-comedy, in its purest 1980′s incarnation, ended.

What At Last produced was a carefully crafted show of icons of the day, some incredible special guests, and the type of show you could only imagine in your head what it would have been like in a dingy, dank, dark comedy club in the 80s. And that was sort of what the night was missing, that small smokey dark club with a dodgy bouncer and the local drug dealer hanging round the toilets. That said the night was full of the greatest, wildest, and most definite alt- comics you could see.

At Last! Highlights

The show started with Nigel Planer’s actor character Nicholas Craig. His tales of what it was like to be an actor and his stories of woe culminated in this rebuttal “we’re all freelance now sugarplum” was genuinely spiteful. The character himself was so grandiose you could find yourself listening to him for hours.

Author Smith, who came out in a red suit and black wig and aimed to take us right back to the 1980s with a chant of “Maggie Maggie Maggie” to which the audience shouted “Out Out Out”. Smith was the first quater compare and worked the crowd as only Smith can do. He seemed distracted by a guy in the front row who he thought was a reviewer only to have the guys shout that he was drawing him…

My personal favourite was Alexei Sayles who took over comparing the second quarter of the show and who added a high level of humour and tails of his experiences during the 80s and the pitfalls.

Talking about and interviewer who had asked Phil Collins a question…The interviewer said ‘apparently you where really upset when Alexi of you “Another Day in Paradise would be if you where dead you baldy bastard”. I feel guilty about that.”

He went on:

“The other thing am unashamed of is my musical career, my hit “Ullo John. Gotta New Motor”,  it was 15 in the BBC Chart and 12 in the Pepsi Chart, as you ca see the Pepsi chart is the more authoritative one. But I had another hit, wasn’t a hit here, was a hit in the commonwealth “Didn’t You Kill My Bother” and it was big in Canada. It was getting heavy rotation on MTV in Toronto so I travelled to canada and did some gigs to try and promote it.  We where on the metro in toronto and a class from, am not sure what the correct term is now “special school”, “educational challenged school”, anyway one of the kids pointed at me and said “Didn’t you Kill My Brother?”  And the teacher said “No Johnny that was you”.

My wife an I where on a train in ’81 or ’82 and this big guy came up to me and said “I wish my fucking granny was here, she fucking loves you, every time she sees you on telly she says “he’s getting paid for shite.”

Though the highlight of the evening was Pauline Melville’s Eydie the Radical Housewife. From start to finish this character was perfect. Eydie says she’s isn’t as radical as some of the other housewives she’s part of the branch that makes funny faces behind mens backs…the audience cracked up to which she said…’you laugh but there a loads of us’.

It was her joke about the  coincidence between Jesus and Osama Bin Laden that was simply stunning. The audience, with her from the very start, almost instantly stopped and jumped on the fence unwilling to commit to the rest of the joke till they got the punchline. This tension was amazing and though we where at the Southbank Centre right there, in that moment, we where in the 1980s, and her conclusion was a classic.

Stewart Lee came on after Pauline’s set and said that she hadn’t performed that character in 30 years.

At Last! The 1981 Show was part of the Southbank Centre’s Festival of Britain celebrations with MasterCard.

‘What a strange weekend. After the dreamy stupor of Anima (see other review), I went to the Bizarre Ball at the Scala venue in King’s Cross, where wide-eyed bunnies danced with gothic princesses, Islamic preachers swallowed fire, and vaudevillian mistresses whipped their way around with a flirtatious smile.

The experience was akin to a Marilyn Manson acid trip, and just walking around that castle-like venue was enough to make you feel like you were on something. With my most adventurous item of clothing being a flamboyant grayish scarf (which I wear on nights out in Brighton anyway), I didn’t quite feel dressed for the occasion. In my comparative normality, the first half-hour was very disorientating, as I anticipated a macabre decadence to ensue.

But to bring things back down to earth – it didn’t – and the event itself was a great deal more tame than the costumes that coloured it. People often stood on the side looking rather listless, and even the dancing could be lethargic; they sipped their beers soberly, as if the climax to their evening was getting dressed and the ball was merely an afterthought.

Perhaps this has something to do with the age group of the clientele, as my plus-one and I (21 and 19 respectively) were easily the youngest ones there. This is not to say, of course, that older people are generally inanimate (notice my flailing attempt to avoid accusations of ageism), but simply that the focus is – for some – no longer on ‘going mental’, as it is for so many students our age.

The Bizarre Ball therefore had the feel of a variety performance rather than a bona fide club night, even though the closing moments saw us rocking out to classics from Nirvana and The Prodigy on the upper floor. There was much to do, and much to explore, so that you never had to feel consigned to one aspect of the evening, which is definitely an advantage of the venue. The audience may have sometimes lacked the boisterousness of their costumes, but the night was a lot of fun in the right company, and certainly a tremendous spectacle.

Bizarre, then, but not necessarily in the ways you might expect.’

By Joshua Feldman

Sit up and show some respect as you are now in the presence of true Fringe Royalty Scott Capurro. WIth 13 Edinburgh Fringe shows, winning 1994 Perrier Award, and countless TV appearances Scott has long been part of the comedy scene in the UK and has taken well to his adopted home.

Scotts new show “Scott Capurro Open’s Up!” is currently touring the UK and will be at Komedia in Brighton March 26. This is a chance to see someone pretty special, there is no way Scott Capurro can be missed…he probably wont let you!

For more information on Scott you can find it all on his website here and for tickets to the Brighton show at Komedia Click Here.

Hey Scott, thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Am going to be a little gushy as reading your bio has made me feel a little ‘star struck’, 13 Edinburgh Fringe shows, wow, what is the pull of the Fringe?

Scottish kilts. They offer such easy access. Also the Scottish audiences don’t immediately hate Americans, the way the Southern British do.

Since your a veteran of the fringe, and a Perrier Award winner, what changes have you seen with the Fringe, good or bad?

The Fringe has become bigger, which is great because more performers can be accommodated. But it’s now sort of a Trade Fair, with comics seeking immediate success, and that adds some undue pressure to the performer’s bars at the gilded and the pleasance. It all seems scene-y, but maybe that’s good too, because the drugs are better. 

Is it hard creating shows for festivals like this?

I just write shows, and if they work, I’m glad, but I don’t worry about the particular festival. Unless I’m playing Australia. Then I perform in a speedo and sequins. They’re very camp.

Tell us a little bit about your new show Scott Capurro Opens Up!? What can we expect?

I’m discussing, comedically, my mother’s death and my own mid life crisis. So I suppose you can expect tears and long silences. Maybe some laughs. Definitely some cake and ice cream, for the kiddies. 

In your press release it says your mission to ‘take bigotry to a whole new level’, are you expecting people to walk out?

I hope they don’t leave. I want them to stay, so I can chip away at their self esteem. It’s like when I dragged a straight guy home and poked him on my sofa. After he said, ‘That was a first’. That’s how I want my audience to feel. He didn’t leave because he couldn’t walk, but i want the audience to stay because they’re afraid to be alone.

What has been your worst/funniest heckle?

‘I don’t have to put up with this from some sad fu#%ing queer.’ I know I’m a sad f-ing queer, but that’s for me to say. She, the heckler, crossed the stage in front of me, so proud of what she’s said, so i punched her in her head. with an open hand, so it was legal, at least in Soho. she was stunned, and the audiences here are funny – they pretend they wanna see it kick off, but when and if it really does they run for the restrooms. I had a glass of wine and just giggled a bit. Like a crazy person. This is what comedy does to one. 

What has been your best ‘Scott’ moment?

When Boris Johnson left his hand at the top of my thigh at a public function. We sat next to each other, and during dinner he put his hand there and left it. For about 20 minutes. I feared I’d never be dry again.

What advice would you give someone who might be thinking of following in your footsteps?

Keep your distance.