Category: Norwich

Beer is All Around

The big screen at Cinema City flickered green – Gremins green. So that was the end of that. No matinee at the flicks for us. What’s a couple of likely lads to do instead on a damp and dismal afternoon in old Norwich town? Find a pub, of course. Down the years, we’ve supped at most city centre watering holes and one of our favourites is the Murderers on Timberhill, a traditional ale house stuffed with old world charm, oak beams and exposed brickwork. The pub has a dark past – hence the name – and it’s usually our last port of call before we stumble onto our bus back to the village.

They serve a very quaffable house wine at the Murderers, at a very good price. And quaff it we do. At the time of our visit, the bar was rammed to the crooked beams with hard-drinking young bearded types. Boisterous but good-humoured, it turns out the hairy merry men had parachuted in from the North Sea gas rigs. And the riggers were hell-bent on spreading the love by offering sambuca shots to everyone from a loaded tray. It would’ve been rude to refuse.

Not to miss a PR trick, the Murderers has stepped into Christmas with a brilliant parody of a famous scene from that perennial festive favourite, Love Actually. So folks, I give you…

Red Bus Rover

It was our ‘wax’ wedding anniversary last week – sixteen years and counting. We’ve already got enough candles to light a small chapel, so they were off the gift list, and since we’re not part of the huntin’, shootin’, fishin’ set, waxed jackets were out too. So, we went for a celebratory bite instead. Our venue was the Unthank Arms, a traditional boozer in the heart of Norwich’s ‘Golden Triangle’ – a popular residential district west of the city centre. The Unthank is noted locally for top-notch pub grub, and we used to be regulars before we emigrated to the country.

As we tucked into our meal, I looked up and clocked this old enamel sign above the entrance to the loos.  

I’m fairly sure the sign refers to the old 37 bus route in London. Memories of my misspent youth came flooding back. The 37 was my main ride back in the seventies when my dad ran a ‘Bottle and Basket’ convenience shop in South London, making a decent living out of booze and bread. Back then, the 37 bus plied its trade between Hounslow in the west to Dulwich in the south. I rode the 37 to school in Battersea, my Saturday job in Feltham, my youth club in Richmond and my bestie’s gaff in Clapham.

The 37 still runs but the route’s changed since my teen heyday. The iconic Routemasters, famous for their open rear platforms –  just right for jumping on and off at red lights – and the (sometimes hunky) conductor and his clickety-click ticket machine, ding-ding to the driver to move on and ‘move down the bus please, plenty of room inside’ mantra have all been pensioned off, more’s the pity. These days, it’s all-electric vehicles that barely make a sound, bored-stiff drivers and bleep-bleep DIY card readers. More efficient, I’m sure, but unlike the seventies, not much of a ride.

Making Mischief

After a few months of hard graft and long days for the publishing malarky, we indulged in a little retail therapy in Norwich followed by a few sherries in the Cathedral Quarter. Unlike other parts of the city, this area has preserved many of its watering holes – just the thing for thirsty shoppers like us. Our final snifter was in the Mischief Tavern on Fye Bridge Street. The Grade II listed building, which sits alongside the River Wensum, was originally a 16th-century wealthy mercer’s house before tumbling down the social ladder to become a pub for the great unwashed.

In more recent times, the basement of the pub was once the venue for the Jacquard Club, a sixties folk music group which hosted the likes of Paul Simon, Judy Collins, Ralph McTell, Tom Paxton and George Melly. The club was founded by our very own Albert Cooper, our neighbour in the old Co-op warehouse before we escaped to the country to become village people. Known about town as ‘The Man in Black’, Albert sings the blues. He’s quite the local celebrity and even gets a mention in the Museum of Norwich. Albert turned 90 last year.

Remarkably, the pub itself still retains some 16th-century features, one of which is definitely not the rusty old condom dispenser in the gent’s loo.

Rather like the pub itself, the cock sock machine has seen better days. Still, we were served a very tasty bottle of Pinot Grigio at a very palatable price, so we weren’t complaining.

All of Us Strangers – Simply Mesmerising

We’d heard amazing things about All of Us Strangers. It’s caused quite a stir among the critics and film award aficionados, so we decided to see what all the fuss was about with a trip to Norwich’s Cinema City. Originally a wealthy merchant’s gaff, it now houses three screens, a bar and a restaurant under a vaulted stone ceiling. Membership gives us free tickets and discounted drinks so, as is our habit, we had a few sherries in the medieval great hall beforehand.

As for the film, well, it’s the most extraordinary piece of cinema I’ve seen in years. Based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, it’s a masterpiece and has been lavished with praise and awards since its release. More gongs to come, I’m sure.

So what’s it about? A passionate romance between two loners set to a glorious eighties soundtrack of the Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Alison Moyet? Yes, but it’s so much more than that, so much deeper. The film begins with writer Adam sitting at his desk in his fancy high-rise staring out at the night-time London skyline. What follows is an examination of profound grief where the past is knitted with the present in a hopeful attempt to find forgiveness and resolution. But is this an autobiographical screenplay Adam is struggling to write? Or a series of fantastical dream sequences? Or perhaps it’s a classic ghost story? Go see it and decide for yourself. All I can say is there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. 

Andrew Scott as Adam is mesmerising. And the exquisite Paul Mescal as his sexy squeeze, Harry, hits the bullseye too. Here’s the trailer…

As an aside, Harry reminded me of a sexy squeeze of my own back in the day who introduced me to Kraftwerk’s amazing 1978 album The Man-Machine as we rolled around the floor of a South Kensington mews house. But that’s another story.

Betty Blue Eyes Brings Home the Bacon

For rural shires on the eastern edge of this green and pleasant land, East Anglia is rather blessed when it comes to live theatre. It seems everyone’s at it, from the have-a-go luvvies in drafty old village halls to well-seasoned thesps treading the boards at the rather magnificent Theatre Royal, Norwich. Unsurprisingly, it’s a mixed bag of riches – some good, some less so but all worth a few shillings. Always worth a punt are the song and dance showstoppers from the Norwich and Norfolk Operatic Society. And their latest, Betty Blue Eyes, was no exception.

Adapted from the 1984 film A Private Function, from the genius pen of Alan Bennett, Betty Blue Eyes is set in a small Yorkshire town just after the War, with food rationing still on the menu, resulting in unpalatable Soviet-style food queues and meagre plates. But to celebrate the 1947 royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Phillip, the local bigwigs decide to throw a banquet fit for a queen with a main course of illegally reared, unlicensed pork. They call the pig ‘Betty’ in honour of the soon-to-be-wed princess. Of course, the feast is strictly for the top drawer with their overbearing sense of entitlement. The hoi polloi have to make do with Spam.

Quirky, eccentric, heart-warming and thoroughly British, the show was a funny, foot-tapping tale of small town, small minds and smug middle-class snobbery; the kind of ‘one rule for us, another rule for them’ mentality exposed by the recent Partygate scandal.

Richard Jarmy Photography – @richardjarmy
Richard Jarmy Photography – @richardjarmy
Richard Jarmy Photography – @richardjarmy
AJ Feather Photography
Richard Jarmy Photography – @richardjarmy

The cast was excellent, particularly those from our own small community hereabouts – you know who you are. For me, the stand out performances came from Will Mugford, the hen-pecked anti-hero Gilbert who saves the day, Joseph Betts as Henry, who develops a rather unconventional relationship with Betty (or perhaps not so unconventional given we’re in Norfolk) and Alex Green, the light-footed, campish Food Inspector in Gestapo leathers trying to catch out the rule-breakers.

No actual pigs were harmed in the performance.

Here they are in rehearsals…

Footnote:

According to Wikipedia , during the filming of A Private Function, Maggie Smith was hemmed in by an angry pig and had to vault over the back of it to escape. Dame Maggie then went on to win a Best Actress BAFTA for her trouble. She’s a real trouper.

Sinderella

We missed Big Dick and His Pussy, last year’s mucky offering from the Adult Panto team, so we were determined to see Sinderella, their very naughty-but-nice interpretation of the classic rags to royalty tale we all know so well. It was a strictly gays’ and girls’ night for our foursome at Norwich’s Maddermarket Theatre, with husbands left behind to look after the sprogs. Giving a whole new meaning to that well-trod panto phrase ‘he’s behind you’, it was a non-stop, X-rated, utterly unbridled, cross-dressed, nudge-nudge, wink-wink glitterfest of smut and filth which left no profanity unsaid or hole barred. We loved it.

Just one more show to go – Treasure Island from the Loddon Players, our much-loved local am dram company – and then it’s curtains for panto season for another year.

The Kindness of Strangers

I was surfing through Nextdoor, the local neighbourhood app, and happened upon this message from a resident of the nearby town of Beccles…

Hi everyone, during the pandemic my son put a large sign in my window saying ‘please wave to me’. I am a paraplegic and sit near the window often. The response was phenomenal and I had flowers left on the doorstep and even chocolates through the letterbox. A lot of the same people still wave to me every time they pass and I wanted you all to know that there are lovely people in our community for whom I am very grateful and just how much a wave really cheers me up. Thank you and please don’t stop. I hope I can pay forward to others. I hope you have a happy holiday. Thank you, thank you and thank you again.

Now and again I see or read something that restores my faith in humanity. This was such a time.

Wishing everyone peace and goodwill, whatever Christmas means to you. I’ll leave you with a few random festive images which got me in the festive mood.

  • Festive Feet
  • Stuck Santa
  • A Jolly Cottage Christmas
  • Loddon Christmas Tree
  • Norwich at Christmas
  • Carnaby Street Christmas Lights
  • Half-Way to Heaven
  • Broadwick Soho
  • Festive Blooms

Last Pub Standing

It’s often been said that old Norwich town once had a pub for every day of the week and a church for every Sunday. But as we discovered on our recent Hidden Street Tour with The Shoebox Experiences, there were, in fact, over 600 pubs within the city walls. Come chucking-out time, the streets ran yellow with the piss from the pissed. The distressed city burghers tried several ways to stem the flood, all of which met with limited success until some bright clerk came up with the clever idea of paying pub landlords to install loos. And so the public house toilet was born.

Most of the pubs have since closed but enough remain for a good night out and, after our tour, we visited one of them – Last Pub Standing – the last of 58 watering holes that once stood along King Street.

It’s a popular, friendly and well-appointed tavern, and first up on the stag do circuit judging by the gangs of jolly young gentlemen parading past our table. One particular group were farmer-themed in cloth caps, jeans and braces. A bearded farmhand dropped down beside us. He asked me to adjust the floppy strap on his dungarees and invited us to join the party. I happily gave his strap a quick tug but declined his offer of extras. We knew joining the boys out on the lash would only lead to ruination – and pissing in the street, probably.

You’ve Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two

We first heard about one of Norwich’s secrets in the local rag and decided to give it a whirl courtesy of The Shoebox Experiences. It just so happens that under their community hub on Norwich’s Castle Meadow lies a tantalising fragment of a bygone street dating back to the 15th century. What lies beneath is Castle Ditches, once a narrow warren of medieval lanes and alleys skirting Norwich Castle mound, a place where jobbing weavers and their broods were born, lived, worked and died – with their looms and their livestock.

As we descended to the old street level, our charming guide, Ollie, took us back through time with his captivating and comical tales of yesteryear. In the medieval era, the rag trade made Norwich rich, and the area boomed. But by the time of the steam age, traditional weaving had been killed off by the industrial mills of the North and the city had reinvented itself with a brand-new trade – making money, lots of it. Castle Ditches became a pig-stinking slum where no respectable Victorian lady would venture; so the fine and upstanding burghers of the city decided to cover it over with a new road – out of sight and out of mind, so to speak. Castle Meadow was born, turning Castle Ditches on its head – top floors became ground floors, ground floors became cellars.

That wasn’t quite the end. The Ditches lived on for a while longer as the city’s crime-riddled red-light district – think Nancy turning tricks for the drunks after closing and the Artful Dodger picking a pocket or two.

All but one of these images of the sunken street are courtesy of The Shoebox Experiences. My own photographic attempts were a little bit rubbish.

Coincidentally, as I was writing about our time down under, this old painting of Castle Ditches popped up on Faceache. It was found in a shop in Norwich. Amazing!

The Shoebox Experiences run a number of city tours. All profits go to their social enterprise which has a mission to create supportive environments for people to connect. Their Tipsy Tavern Tour sounds right up our alley.

Norwich Pride 2023 – a Celebration of Youth

It’s been a dribbly July and more rain had been forecast to drench Norwich Pride. Contrary to the weather pundits, old Ma Nature decided to give us all break and the sun shone on the crowd of many colours who piled into the city for Norwich Pride 2023. All life was there, from the newly hatched to old farts like us – truly reflecting our diverse universe. And with our marching days behind us, once again it was humbling to watch the long chorus line of young people putting it out there, happy and proud. I reckon we’re in safe hands.

I’ll let the photos do the talking…

We were content to wander through the rainbow throng and settle down to a bottle or two at the Forum to soak up the vibe and take in the cabaret. Watching a talented dance troupe of young girls strutting their stuff to Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ MC’d by a drag queen gladdened the heart. Yes, we really are in good hands.