Cultureshock

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Video transcript

After the first couple of pints and before the bingo, that was the land we inhabited.  My partner and I were a social club 'turn', a 'boy-girl' duo (why not a man-woman duo?).  Romantic ballads in the first spot, and then it was absolutely vital that before the end of the night you filled the dance floor.  Otherwise you might risk the stigma of being paid off: called away due to "an urgent phone call".  Everyone understood the code.  I always wondered what would happen if you really did have an urgent call.

What we did was nothing fancy.  Nothing too up to date.  Nothing that would rock the boat.  Unless you were actually singing "Rock the Boat"!  And the absolute unbreakable law of this universe was that you always, always, always finished with "Simply the Best". 

We'd arrive at the car park at about 6, usually welcomed by a couple of local lads who'd promise to "look after" our car in exchange for a couple of quid.  You could tell what kind of a venue it was by where it stood on a sliding scale of implied threat.  On one occasion, we were glad we drove an old heap because the other act's nice little hatchback was broken into during her first spot.  She moved the car somewhere safer.  And during her second spot, they smashed the opposite windows.

Once we'd hauled the PA system up the many, many stairs to the concert room, we could meet our employer for the evening, the near mythological figure of the concert chairman.  Believe everything you've ever heard about these people.  One trick we learned very early was to change with your foot against the dressing room door.  The concert chairman would often pop in with some supposedly vital piece of information at just the point he calculated you'd be wearing the fewest clothes.  It was the land that gender equality forgot.  Performers left warnings for each other on the dressing room walls - "Watch out for Jack, king of the leches".

And, talking of unsavoury characters, you then got to meet the organist and drummer.  Some of the bands had strict codes of conduct.  There were fines if they were asked to play hackneyed favourites: a pint for "I Got the Music in Me"; 2 pints for "Chain Reaction"; and, except for drag acts, absolutely NO "Big Spender".   The band could make or break your evening.   One musician’s day job was organist at the local crematorium: poor woman cringed whenever some wit asked her for "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".

During the bingo, as a woman you had 2 choices: play the game or sit in the lobby.  Usually, the one bingo-free room in the club was the bar: strictly men only.  So I got me dabber out.  Maybe it was all the cheap Federation Ale, but it took a while for the penny to drop that the cards were printed in a particular order.  I'd panic to keep up with the deluge of numbers while other players looked over amused, as if to say "Bingo virgin".

So many of those places we used to play have disappeared within the space of a few years, victims of changing tastes.  We’ve worked in much more exotic places since then and played better music.  And, yes, we used to laugh at the clubs, slightly stunned that we'd ended up following the well-worn tramlines of the professional "turn".  But I'll never forget the energy we'd get from a good night, when we’d look out at the dance floor to see lots of smiling, slightly drunk faces singing along as they got on with their weekend.