Thursday, February 09, 2006

 

White Man in Hammersmith Palais

Mid afternoon and the company starts to grind to a halt. Quick glances outside to see if people are starting to get on the long queue if coaches stretching round the lake. It's fun time and we need to be off to London for the Mid Year Party & Briefing. Last year this was about 5 minutes of chat from the MD and several hours of partying - we are expecting a repeat of the same.

A little later and we step off the coaches and into the Novotel London West to freshen up and change for the evening - an evening at the Hammersmith Palais round the corner. It's a bit nippy so we get driven by coach to the event too - 0.7 miles round the serpentine one-way system (or half that on foot) - because we're worth it.

This is the first time I'd been to Hammersmith Palais and I was a bit worried as it looked a little dingy when we went through the main doors. I suppose "dingy" may be the wrong word - it wasn't dirty or in need of maintenance but it looked old. I was expecting something a little smarter, I suppose.

Once into the main hall, though, it was much nicer - free booze and food. Every few minutes a waiter would come past with a tray of cones full of chips and mayo. Actually they were half potato and half parsnip, which was a pleasant surprise (or an unpleasant surprise for those who react violently to parsnip - I'm glad Mike didn't manage to make the Party!).

I liked the layout of the stage - nice open area around it with heavy-duty bars at the front to lean on. Gina Yashere was the compere for the evening - for compere, read "rabble rouser" whose job is to try and get people to shut up and welcome whatever act is coming next. Luckily I was paying attention so she didn't need to hunt me down on your safari through the audience and bars.
Alistair Baker was first up to get the numbers out of the way (took a lot longer than last year) and then Gina introduced Swansea's Rob Brydon. A bit of an unknown quantity for me - I had only seen adverts for his cab driver monologues until now. As he was just one of several acts on tonight, he didn't have a full set and I feel we ended up with a pick'n'mix instead - some jokes, impersonations of Robbie Corbett and Coogan (good, mind you), and crowd involvement with doing voice-overs. Variety but nothing to really get you going - but then it was early and I hadn't had the chance to get hit the drink enough. Alcohol always makes things funnier.
The highlight of the evening for me was seeing and listening to Soul 2 Soul. They were given a good hour to go through their back-catalogue with great tracks like 'Back To Life'. Although I'd heard a lot of their work on the radio since the late 1980s, I didn't really know what they were about and tonight was a good intro.

Girls Aloud

Whatever.

 

 

 

If Soul 2 Soul was the best part of the evening then their mate Trevor Nelson was the pits. He must have been thinking "mid-week corporate bash... yawn... roll on the weekend". Trevor turned up, put some average records on, chucked out a few lines about everybody having a good time, and then disappeared into the night with his cheque.  What a waste of space.


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