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Fanfare for the Everyman ends weekend long party
IF you were there, then, like the 1960s, you probably don’t remember it.
We refer to one of the biggest parties the city has seen in years, which took place to close the Everyman Bistro, this weekend just gone.
NormanIn one way shape or form Liverpool Confidential – and a cast of thousands, famous actors, writers, musicians, kids and mere honest-to-goodness revellers - were in and out of the place all weekend.
We do recall most of it: the impromptu trip there on Friday night which was the “soft” farewell: drinking fizz from the very few fluted glasses left; Martin Smith’s fantastic Grapes Band, and, of course, Stormin’ Norman Killon DJing in the Third Room.
And the stellar bacchanal on Saturday, which reduced us to having to bunk into the Bistro through the theatre’s stage passageways, past midnight, such was the queue down the road. Still.
You all have your tales and pictures and shaky hands from the event, and this is almost certainly our last post. So speaking of which, how appropriate that RLPO trumpeter Brendan Ball sounded last orders gone 2am, from behind the Bistro bar, with a spine-tingling, forlorn rendition of it.
Much earlier, while standing outside the annexe – or “Event Control” - we were slightly concerned that the pyrotechnics burning on the roof of the theatre, from its own closing ceremony at dusk, might set the whole building alight.
But not to worry: “It’s been risk assessed,” a theatre insider assured us.
Ah, now there’s something you would never have heard in Ken Campbell’s day.
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I still feel ill
What a brilliant night, Paddy and the team. You are a wonderful lot of people and may the sun shine on your next effort. Don't be buggering off and not coming back, Paddy, everyone is right behind you.
One of the disappointing things last night was the inept piece of performance upstairs (out in the street on this occasion) whilst there was a magical, stirring, unforgettable river of faces, memories and delights downstairs in the Bistro. What will we all do next Saturday night? was a common question and fans weren't referring to the lack of a publically funded performance space but reminding us all that the Bistro was the at the heart of the Everyman experience. in the end, the Everyman was a Bistro with a great theatre attached upstairs: not a theatre with a great Bistro attached downstairs.
After thirty-six years of drinking in there, I can say with some authority that you got a better class of drunks in there on a Friday rather than a Saturday.
Of course it wasn't the same after the smoking ban. The familiar faces vanished and were seemingly replaced by a lot of gormless, acne-spattered ones.
There was a period when scallies started coming to the Bistro in the late 1980s and I can remember at least two brawls complete with flying chairs!
I remember when owner and judo black belt Dave Scott kicked a particularly unruly Boxhead all the way up the stairs. Happy days xxx
Where will we all go now?
The Bistro’s gone, The Cracke’s got lagerboy monkeymen watching big screen footy, the Flying Picket was closed down for no apparent reason, The Phil’s closed for refurbishment, The Caz closed down, The Haçienda demolished and The Grapes is now some kind of pricy and very noisy cramped disco.
My life in drinking has been Stalinistically airbrushed out of history.
The thing is, apart from slipping up with that godawful doorman who took steroids in the late 1990s, the Bistro has generally got it right. While I generally didn't go there like I used to, it was good to know that it was there if I wanted to, and if I was out in town I usually went there at some point. It is irreplaceable.
I still feel ill