It was a big night at the Fairfield Halls on Saturday, with Dara Ó Briain, one of the biggest stand-up acts around, performing in front of a full house.
KEN TOWL fills in the venue’s audience feedback form
Big name, big show: Dara Ó Briain performed to a Croydon full house on Saturday. But there’s only one other comedy act booked at the Fairfield Halls before November
The minute the show at the Fairfield Halls ended (10.16pm on Saturday), my phone buzzed as I received an email that thanked me for attending and breathlessly expressed the hope that I had “enjoyed seeing Dara Ó Briain: Re:Creation”.
It went on, exhorting me not to “be shy”, but rather to “tell us what you think in 60 seconds. We’d love to know what you thought of Fairfield Halls. Be honest, we’re always looking for new ways to create memorable experiences”.
What I thought of Fairfield Halls, rather than Dara Ó Briain? The venue rather than the performer? And I have to do it in 60 seconds?
OK, Fairfield Halls, I’ll tell you what I think, but you’ll have to be patient.
First, I’m going to dedicate a little more than 60 seconds to the star attraction.
Ó Briain, who famously looks a lot like the big cartoon bus driver who adorns the side of every Megabus, is big, and a bit of a coup for the Fairfield Halls, which he filled, of course. He is also big and tall, and a fair amount of the humour was self-deprecating stuff about his height and his weight that helped to set up an air of empathy that suited what became a very personal story, in the second half of the show, about his adoption and search for his natural parents.
Much of the first-half involved engagement with a couple of families in the front row, the schtick for which he is rightly very highly regarded. It was a privilege, Fairfield, since you ask, to see a comic at the top of his game, spinning humour out of improvisation and callbacks with a velocity that forced every member of the audience to focus their minds so as not to miss a line.
And all of this was tempered by a humanity that never once threatened to embarrass or humiliate his targets. You knew, of course, he could if he wanted to, and that’s where the edginess was.
The stitching between the ad libs and the prepared material was invisible, and when we got to the second, more introspective and personal, half of Re:Creation that Ó Briain’s surgical exposure of family relationships via his audience interactions took on another layer of meaning.
One of my favourite jokes was during his reference to his own height, when he said that one of the main causes of death for tall men was… being hit in the head by a bus wing mirror. Those of us of greater than average height (I am 6ft 3in) fell about with laughter. But this wasn’t the punchline, merely the set-up.
Shorter people, Ó Briain claimed, never got this joke. “It just goes ‘whoosh’,”, he said, as he mimed something going over his head.
He then went on to explain (presumably for the benefit of his shorter audience members) that in Scunthorpe, nobody had “got the double meaning of the joke”. In fact, Scunthorpe was the butt of many of his jokes, Croydon only one.
All right, Fairfield, I’ll tell you what he said about Croydon.
So, the last time he toured, he did this thing where he hung his jacket on a chair on the stage and, at the end of the show, left it there on the chair, and walked off to thunderous applause. After a minute, he would come back on, as if in gratitude for an appreciative audience, collect his jacket and walk off again.
Paying tribute: when it comes to modern, popular music, the Fairfield Halls’ offer is not very original. And it’s not just Mike Oldfield who won’t be appearing…
When he tried this in Croydon, he came back on and the jacket had been nicked.
So far, so Croydon. But the story didn’t end there.
As if to be more conciliatory, Ó Briain went on to relate how his management had received a phone call from the apparently remorseful Croydon thief who had apologised and said he would return the jacket if Ó Briain would create a message for his mate, who was about to get married.
Ó Briain’s response. “Tell them to fuck off – I don’t negotiate with terrorists!”
I digress, Fairfield. After all, you didn’t ask me about Dara Ó Briain, you asked me what I thought about Fairfield Halls, and you asked me to be honest because you are always looking for ways to create memorable experiences. So, I’ll be honest. After all, I am always looking for memorable experiences.
You pulled off quite a coup getting Dara Ó Briain to come to Croydon, especially since his jacket was stolen here. And you have the very funny Russell Kane headlining another comedy night on March 6. So, yeah, comedy, not bad at all, although after Kane, the Hall’s next comedy booking is not until… November.
Music, though?
Again, the classical stuff, you do pretty well.
Those London Mozart Players do a lot of the heavy-lifting and your acoustics in the Concert Hall bring out the best in any orchestra. And you’ve got Carmen: Ellen Kent’s Farewell Opera Tour coming up at the end of this month. That’s definitely something to look forward to.
Better in Bexhill?: why can the De La Warr Pavilion offer more original acts than Croydon?
But popular music? To be honest (and that’s what you asked for), I look at your schedule and I despair. Tribute band after tribute band. A tribute to Queen (February 7). A tribute to Tubular Bells (“PLEASE NOTE – MIKE OLDFIELD DOES NOT APPEAR AT THIS EVENT”) (February 26). A tribute to Bob Marley (February 27; there’s no note to confirm that Bob Marley won’t be appearing at this event). A tribute to George Michael (March 13). And so on…
In the most literal sense, the only real thing you’ve got in the popular music category is The Real Thing, who are touring to celebrate 50 years of their No1, “You To Me Are Everything”. No doubt, they will play “Can You Feel the Force?” too.
But where are the other music acts that are touring over the next months? And any that have had a hit more recently than the 1970s? Not chez vous, Fairfield.
If I want to see more artists-that-play-medium-sized-venues, I have to look further afield than Fairfield.
Down on the coast, in Bexhill-on-Sea, they don’t depend on end-of-the-pier tribute acts.
The last time Wilko Johnson toured, I saw him in Bexhill. He wasn’t at the Fairfield. When Sparks toured a couple of years ago, I saw them at Bexhill because the last time they played the Fairfield was 1975, the year before The Real Thing got to No1.
If I want to see Lucinda Williams next Saturday, rather than a Freddie Mercury impersonator, I will have to go to the De La Warr Pavillion in Bexhill. Likewise, If I want to see The Cowboy Junkies.
So, to answer your questionnaire, Fairfield, my advice would be to raise your game on your bookings. Don’t rely on copy-cat acts.
Be more like Bexhill. Start booking the real things, as well as The Real Thing.
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