BAD EXPERIENCES IN BRIGHTON PART 2

Well, not that bad for us really, but certainly memorable.

Again, it was decades ago that our barn dance band were booked at the Brighton Police Social Club. We arrived to be met by a very angry organiser-copper. "What time do you call this, then? You should have started playing over an hour ago."

Fortunately, Tina had our copy of the contract with her and it showed that we were arriving to set up at the time given on the agency contract. He went off to get his copy of the contract from his office and his copy had the much earlier time. Well, it could have been a mistake except that the copper was very interested in the fact that one of the copies was an old-fashioned carbon-copy so he was sure that the agent was setting him up. Anyway, his attitude immediately changed. He apologised; could we set and start as quickly as we could because there was a full hall of people waiting. He would explain that it was the agent's fault and not the band's about the apparent late start.

There was to be an interval act, a comedian. He was a pain before he went constantly talking to the caller (me) and telling me how he wanted to be introduced. I was to really make sure that everyone was sitting down before I introduced him and he gave me the exact words that I was to say in my build up. He had brought a tape-recorder along with a trumpet-fanfare on it with canned applause. This was to be played through the band's PA. When he was introduced he stood behind the curtain for a while whistling and cheering before eventually appearing to use my microphone.

The band went to listen at the side of the hall and it was awful a long succession of horrible racist jokes and comments - one so bad that I even remember it:-
.... of course, you know that they get all these government payments in brown envelopes marked 'OHMS' You know what that stands for, don't you? Only Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

I had been thinking sadly that the comic knew that this was the sort of material that a police audience would enjoy, but now we had a different problem. Our accordion player decided that he wasn't going to take this and that he was going up to switch the PA off. We were busy trying forcefully, almost physically to stop him doing so. However, he wasn't the only one objecting. The organiser was getting complaints from his audience and he went up on stage, told the comic that he heard enough, took the microphone and apologised for what they had heard! He then came over to us and asked if we would be good enough to got up and re-start straight away, even though it was our break. He wanted a good atmosphere restored straight away.

The rest of the evening went well and when he came up to pay the band at the end of the evening there was more than the fee we had asked for. He told us that he had given us most of the comic's fee. He also said that. what with the contract times and the comic, he wasn't very happy with that agent and that he would be paying him a visit in uniform.
It turned out the Entertainment Agency Licence (or whatever the proper name is) registration number on the contact was false and that he was not registered properly. We never heard from the agent again.