First viewed : 31 July 1981
This was a one-off pre-recorded film of a concert featuring an eclectic range of musicians and younger comedians for Mental health charity MENCAP. The line up was :
MUSIC : Hot Gossip , Chas and Dave, Alan Price, Elvis Costello, Jon Anderson, Nico Ramsden, Ian Dury
COMEDY : Chris Langham, Not The Nine O Clock News ( both together and solo ), Neil Innes, 20th Century Coyote (Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson ), Alexei Sayle
Rowan and co were the main draw of course although as a group they only did a run-through of the familiar "Abou Ben Adhem" sketch and none of their solo routines were particularly good. In fact they were outshone by their exiled former colleague Chris Langham in that respect.
From my point of view, the concert is most memorable for me for introducing me to the "alternative comedy" set . This was where I first saw Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Alexei Sayle. Having sat through Mayall doing his "Theatre" rant/poem and Sayle's assault on middle class preoccupations - the "Dance of the Faulty Central Heating System" and all - I concluded that "alternative" really meant not funny.
One other thing I recall is Sayle having a pop at Bruce Springsteen and my sister not having heard of him so after the show I played her a recording of his last single "The River" which is ironically a fairly left-leaning song.
No comments:
Post a Comment