Our arts correspondent, BELLA BARTOCK, on how a geriatric grappler is the latest sign of a declining reputation at the council-owned arts venue
Knock-out: Kendo Nagasaki has dusted off his Samurai gear one last time
The “jewel in the crown” of Croydon Council’s arts offering, the Fairfield Halls, will be used to stage all-in wrestling later this month, when the headline act will be an 83-year-old who is coming out of retirement for the occasion.
It has not been confirmed, but Mayor Jason Perry is thought to be a big fan, and has already ensured that he is claiming his freebie VIP seats.
Wrestling was always a feature at the Fairfield Halls in the 1970s, one of the venues used by ITV’s Saturday afternoon World of Sport programme, when Kendo Nagasaki, the masked man of mystery, was one of the stars of this pantomime masquerading as sport.
Now “Nagasaki”, real name Peter Thornley, is top of the bill at the Fairfield Halls once again, 60 years after his debut bout.
“British Wrestling is returning to Fairfield Halls in 2024, as LDN Wrestling puts on another evening of rip-roaring action,” goes the promoters’ spiel. Except the show is on a Sunday afternoon, from 3pm. Maybe old Kendo can’t stay up too late these days…
The council spent £70million on refurbishing the Fairfield Halls to be fit for the 21st Century – despite several investigations, by external auditors and the Met Police’s Fraud Squad, no one has been able to determine where the money went as the project, overseen by botch builders Brick by Brick, went £40million over budget. It was one of the significant overspends that bankrupted the borough.
Where’s the money gone?: no one is quite sure how the refurbishment of the Fairfield Halls, overseen by Brick by Brick, cost £70m
Since the Halls re-opened in 2019 following the three-year refurbishment works, the programme at the venue has been managed by Bournemouth-based swimming pool operators BHLive.
The venue has been without an artistic director for the past 12 months, since the departure of Jonathan Higgins. Insiders say that there were mounting tensions between Higgins and the management in Bournemouth, just as there had been previously with Higgins’ predecessor, Neil Chandler. BHLive’s interest in dumbing down the Fairfield Halls’ offer, and specifically including wrestling, was said to be one of the breaking points.
This month’s sales pitch on the BHLive-run Fairfield website states: “Featuring the sensational in-ring return of British wrestling legend Kendo Nagasaki, who will break the Guinness Book of Records for the oldest masked wrestler in the world.” Which, when you think about it, is pretty niche. Not just the oldest wrestler. But the oldest, masked wrestler. They would never have entertained such low-rent entries when Ross and Norris McWhirter were editing the record book….
“Book now for guaranteed tickets, we guarantee that the kids will be talking about it for weeks afterwards!” That’s guaranteed, apparently.
Staging bogus wrestling shows in Croydon’s premier arts venue, after years of hard work to try to re-establish the Fairfield’s once worldwide reputation for classical music, will do nothing to address growing concerns over BHLive’s feeble programming at the under-used venue.
Dumbing down: the Fairfield Halls’ cultural programme is managed by a Bournemouth swimming pool operator
Some suggest that the senior management in Bournemouth would like nothing better than for them to be released from their Croydon contract, and take a hefty compensation payment – though with our cash-strapped council, that’s unlikely to happen.
So instead, the Halls sits there, on the opposite side of Park Lane from the Town Hall, hugely under-used.
Tomorrow night there’s a performance by TV comedian Mark Watson, and a George Michael tribute act on in the Ashcroft Theatre. Then no performances at all in the Halls’ three venues – Concert Hall, Ashcroft and the Wreck – through all of next week, until Friday November 15.
There’s just one show on next weekend, a comedy club. Then nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Until November 21, when there’s one night of ballet, followed by a relatively – by Fairfield standards – busy weekend, made up of a business awards ceremony, an Abba tribute act and the return of Kendo Nagasaki.
Sham show: old-style all-in wrestling had stars such as Mick McManus, from New Cross
Hardly £70million well-spent, though.
On social media, the announcement of all-in wrestling with a geriatric grappler headlinging the show was greeted by the Croydon public with a mix of disbelief and ridicule.
“Zimmer frames at 10 paces,” was one description.
“Jesus! Is Kendo still going? He must be in his 80s by now.”
“Kendo? Seriously?”
The wrestling promoters suggest that this might just be Nagasaki’s last time in the ring. At least, until the next one.
Professional wrestling, in Kendo Nagasaki’s hey-day with the likes of Mick McManus and Big Daddy, was always a bit of a joke, with often fixed bouts, a kind of year-round pantomime, with goodies and baddies playing out their roles, to the delight of often packed audiences who did not seem to care that what they were watching was a carefully orchestrated sham.
Thornley/Kendo has staged more comebacks than Frank Sinatra, but he last retired from the ring in 2008, by which time he was already in his late 60s.
Filler material: the wrestling was on the telly only until Dickie Davies had the football results to present
With his Japanese-inspired, Samurai-style outfits, including his trademark mask – never to be removed by his opponents, or risk utter shame! – Kendo Nagasaki was one of the wrestling panto villains everyone loved to hate.
His schtick was all about, well… a bamboo stick. He made up his stage name from Kendo, the Japanese form of fencing, and Nagasaki, the city that sustained the second devastating atomic bomb blast. And he never spoke. Oh, how the audiences hated him.
For television, the wrestling was a cheap filler, not requiring any expensive sports rights, to go in between racing’s ITV Seven and before football’s final scores came in to Dickie Davies in the World of Sport studio. The public loved it: with commentator Kent Walton behind the mic on Saturday afternoons, the audience could reach 14million.
At the peak of his career, Thornley – who outside the ring was a successful businessman – was not immune from attacks from his less-than-adoring public, such as the woman, in her 40s, who hit him with her handbag, in which she was carrying a brick. Or the man who stabbed him in the back with a fountain pen (we are going back almost 50 years here…).
Over the years, Thornley said he’d suffered broken ribs, has had three operations on his neck and had persistent knee problems.
“I prefer to break bones than get mine broken,” he said in a recent BBC interview about the comeback, which he says will be raising money for charity, as he lays claims to world records for being the oldest professional wrestler and for the longest career.
What Kendo Nagasaki’s final wrestling show might also do is deliver a knock-out blow to the Fairfield Halls’ crumbling arts reputation.
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