A guiding light - feature about Guide Dogs puppy walkers

WE may remember collecting silver foil and milk bottle tops for the Blue Peter appeal for Guide Dogs For The Blind as children, but now we’re grown up, there’s something else even more useful we can do for Guide Dogs (as the charity is now known)  - it’s a 24/7 commitment, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

The Wokingham-based service, which trains and provides dogs to support blind and partially-sighted people, is looking to recruit puppy walkers  to raise and care for guide dog puppies from the age of seven weeks to between 12 and 15 months, when they are ready to begin their training.

It’s a demanding role, but most of those who take it on wouldn’t have it any other way, such as Doreen and Adrian Griffin, from Reading, who are currently looking after 11-month-old labrador Woodie, and golden retriever Esme, who is just 13 weeks old.

Seeing them walking round Newbury town centre with the puppies, the additional effort they put into basic training from the earliest days is apparent, particularly when Doreen and Adrian have only been looking after Esme for five weeks.

“We started off with just one dog at a time, but when Adrian took early retirement, we decided we could manage two , and found that having an ‘overlap’ actually helps, because the puppies learn very quickly from the older dog,” explains Doreen. “It’s not double the effort - it’s actually half the work!” 

The pups attract plenty of attention from dog lovers as we stop for an al fresco coffee. “They need to get used to people, and busy places,”  says Adrian. “Town walks are essential; and we also take them on buses and trains, to the supermarket and even to the airport - they’ve got to get used to the hustle and bustle.

“The man who has our first pup, Marley, rang us the other day - Marley is going to fly to California with him! It really makes us feel that what we do with the pups is worthwhile. That’s why we do this - the satisfaction of giving someone a life. Having a guide dog makes such a difference.”

Doreen and Adrian became puppy walkers about four years ago after their 14-year-old golden retriever Jason died. “Our neighbour said it was so strange not seeing us walking the dog, and she suggested puppy walking, as her mum did it,” explains Doreen. “It seemed like a good idea, as it isn’t a long-term commitment; we could take a break between pups - although we haven’t yet.”

The couple say that they found the volunteer vetting and training process very straightforward, with plenty of ongoing support from their Guide Dogs supervisor, and all food and vet bills paid for.  The biggest commitment is the familiarisation excursions, which need to be more varied than a normal dog walk, and getting used to Guide Dogs’ approved glossary of commands, such as “spend” and “busies”  for toileting.

Woodie and Esme are the couple’s fourth and fifth guide dog pups - of their previous charges, two have gone on to become successful guide dogs, with  the other one not meeting the rigourous standards required, purely because of his fast walking pace. “He’s fine though,”  says Doreen, “he now lives with the racehorse trainer Andrew Balding in Kingsclere, so he landed on his feet.”

As their first guide dog puppy, Marley was the hardest one to say goodbye too when it was time to start his full training, but a few weeks later, the Griffins were handed a new pup, “and there was no looking back after that,” says Doreen. “We can’t imagine not doing it now.”

As a Berkshire-based charity, Guide Dogs is keen to enrol more puppy walkers in the west of the county. Clare Burgess, the volunteer development manager for Guide Dogs’ Reading mobility team, is a puppy walker herself, and says: "Without puppy walkers there would be no Guide Dogs, it really is that important. 

“Our puppy walkers are all wonderful; with support from their local supervisor they raise well socialised, friendly dogs ready for the exciting adventures ahead of them. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to spend my time with these amazing dogs- they are just so intelligent and seem to pick everything up so quickly.

“When I started puppy walking the training and support I received was second to none, I really would recommend it to anyone, it has been the best experience of my life, 

"We are committed to increasing the number of Guide Dog partnerships, this means breeding more puppies and in turn means we need many more puppy walkers. ”

If you feel you could offer a home to a Guide Dogs puppies, contact Guide Dogs’ volunteer team on 0845 371 7771 or email volunteer@guidedogs.org.uk

• First published in Out & About magazine, Jul y 2012

Hardin nuff - review of Case Hardin

Photo by Richard Markham

Case Hardin at ACE Space, Newbury on Friday, July 20

AND so, as ACE Space goes dark for the month of August, the community arts venue saved one of its best for last, with a gig by Case Hardin, sort-of local (it’s complicated) leading lights on the UK’s alt-country/Americana scene.

With two albums-worth of material to chose from (2008’s Some Tunes For Charlie Spencer and 2011’s Every Dirty Mirror), plus a few new songs, the band, led by Pete Gow (intrepid TV news producer by day, beardy waistcoated musoman by night) now have a sturdy library of songs to select from - mind you, Gow has been fronting the band in varied formats since 1999, so he’s had time to build up a bit of a back catalogue.

Gow is quite a storyteller, and his songs paint pictures of bare knuckle fighters (Champeen) and shell-shocked squaddies (The Ring), complemented by Adam Kotz’s lamenting mandolin and banjo and  Jim Maving’s weeping guitar. That’s not to say that there aren’t any upbeat moments - forthcoming single Where Angels Fear To Tread, to be released on Clubhouse Records and described by Gow as “a three-and-a-half minute precis of why I am, and will always be, single”, ends with a bit of a wig-out; while, encore Three For The Road finally transformed some of the tapping toes in the audience into dancing feet.

A handful of the songs were solo or near-solo numbers, with Gow being accompanied only by Maving’s heartbreaking guitar playing, but Gow certainly appreciates the coven of musicians he has gathered around him. Stating that he’d “long been of the opinion that I’m the third best singer in the band”, he launched the five-piece into 1,000 Sides Of Vinyl, showcasing his voice alongside those of Maving and Kotz, who otherwise focused mainly on providing the harmonies that added to Case Hardin’s rich sound. 

Gow’s awareness of two elements of his songwriting, that which requires the full band sound, and the more introspective singer-songwriter component, is reflected on the album Every Dirty Mirror, which was conceived and sequenced as if produced for vinyl, with a full tilt band “side” and the second part being more contemplative. Case Hardin is very much Gow’s band, but although he suggested that he “became a bit of a Frankenstein’s Monster in the studio” (he possibly meant Dr Frankenstein himself), he is clearly very comfortable with the current line-up, and the high calibre musical input and inspiration they bring to the performance of his songs, both recorded and live.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 26. 2012

Five stars for Sayle - review of Alexei Sayle

Newbury Comedy Festival: Alexei Sayle - Stalin Ate My Homework, at The Corn Exchange, Newbury, on Saturday, July 14

ALEXEI Sayle - self-styled “fat b*****d*, inventor (pretty much) of alternative comedy, pithy celebrity insulter extraordinaire, and now more or less a full-time author with five published novels, and motoring correspondent (I didn’t see that one coming, despite his 1984 hit ‘Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?).

It was this writer guise that brought Sayle to be standing at a lectern in The Corn Exchange, reading mainly from the memoir of his odd upbringing by his Communist Jewish parents  in Liverpool. Mr and Mrs Sayle’s beliefs led to some peculiar child-raising decisions - to make up for the fact that they refused to let young Alexei watch Bambi with his classmates (in addition to their dislike of Communist witch hunt supporter Walt Disney, they argued that it may be too upsetting) they took him to a screening of Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, “with its scenes of ritualistic child sacrifice”. It was then that Sayle realised that he wasn’t quite the same as other children.

Despite the fact that Sayle hadn’t performed stand-up for 16 years until a slight return in recent months, you can’t put a natural comedian down, and his innate wit came into its own as he fielded questions from the audience with a comfortable candidity about his life, career and the many celebrities he has insulted over the years. Sayle admitted that as he had grown older, he had become more aware of the feelings of others, but still appears genuinely baffled that certain people have long-held grudges arising from his comments about them, most of which were made, at least in part, for comic effect.

While Sayle says that he is keen not to return to old ground career-wise, his tales of the earliest days of alternative comedy (“it could be brilliant, it could be terrible, but it was always exciting - Keith Allen once threw darts at the audience”) and thoughts on the modern stand-up scene (“they’ll talk about all this intimate stuff, but as soon as politics is mentioned, there’s tension in the room - it’s like politics is the new taboo”)  suggests that a  full stand-up tour would be extremely interesting indeed.

But that’s not to say that a book reading is second-best to a stand-up show, because it reflects who Sayle is now, and being as his career has developed so organically via “creating an entirely new art form as the only way of making myself employable”, I get the feeling that the next step, whatever it is, is something that can’t be forced. 

* Chatting with Sayle after the show (well, I had to buy the book), he mentioned that he had never had a five star review. I explained that the Newbury Weekly News’ arts pages don’t have a starring system - but Alexei, just for you: I give it five stars.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 19, 2012

A teensy bit tame - review of Seann Walsh and Josh Widdicombe

Newbury Comedy Festival: Seann Walsh - Seann To Be Wild, and Josh Widdicombe - Further Adventures Of... at New Greenham Arts on Thursday, July 10

I’VE had Seann Walsh on my to-do list for quite a while, but I can’t quite remember why - I probably saw him on a television panel show and was charmed by his easy wit and lovely hair.

But there was something ever so slightly “meh” about the preview of his Edinburgh Fringe show, Seann To Be Wild, at New Greenham Arts last Thursday. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it for a couple of days - it was a reasonably slick performance (taking into account that it was a show in-preparation), there was definitely some funny stuff in there and the material fitted well with the theme (Walsh’s love of alcohol and exploits while drinking).

And then, while watching Alexei Sayle’s book reading at The Corn Exchange on Saturday, a comment made by Sayle about today’s stand-up scene made perfect sense. Preparing for a return to stand-up after a 16 year hiatus, the godfather of alternative comedy immersed himself in the current comedy scene, and concluded that while stand-up comics of today are prepared to reveal all sorts of intimate information about themselves, today’s taboo subject seems to be politics. Sayle’s opinion is that the 21st century UK comedy scene’s world view is a generally nihilistic one, with few comics delving deeper than a Mock The Week level of lampooning of the state of affairs.

And so it was with Walsh - and, to a certain extent, Josh Widdicombe as well, whose material, about the little annoyances and confusions of life (the backstories to boardgames for example) was wider ranging, and so hit more targets than Walsh’s drinking tales, but it just wasn’t that memorable. I am aware that one issue with preparing an Edinburgh show is that the performers have to submit their show title, and even the blurb about it, months before the event, and thus before they have even written it, meaning that their material has to then be tailored to the title, which is probably not going to be an approach that works well for everyone.

I don’t mean to come across as damning here; both Walsh and Widdicombe are very able comics, with the sort of able humour which works excellently on television shows and a confidence in their ability which could see them go far. Theirs is the sort of safe-but-funny comedy which goes down well on a wide scale, and I wouldn’t be surprised if either or both of them make it as big as the likes of Russell Howard and Michael MacIntyre. Nothing to set the world on fire; but two secure pairs of hands.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 19, 2012

Darby winner - review of Rhys Darby

Rhys Darby: This Way To The Spaceship, at The Anvil, Basingstoke on Tuesday, July 10

I WAS a little bit naughty last Tuesday - slap bang in the middle of the Newbury Comedy Festival, on the night I had the pick of John Shuttleworth at New Greenham Arts, Daniel Simonsen and Dr Brown at Arlington Arts and the You Must Be Joking final at The Corn Exchange,I skipped town altogether and snuck off to Basingstoke to see Rhys Darby (aka Rhysiebabes, as I will always call him). I know, it was treacherous of me, but the opportunity to see a Hollywood actor and the man behind a cult comedy character (as Flight of the Conchords’ Murray Hewitt) in action was irresistible. And I’m a sucker for the Kiwi accent.

I had no regrets about my decision; Rhys Darby’s show - based on his book of the same name - was delightful. A constructed piece of theatrical performance rather than pure stand-up, the show looked back at a number of crucial incidents in Murray’s early life which may - or, may not - have led to him being one of the chosen ones to be evacuated into space as a human worth saving when the world ends. This construct wasn’t terribly well explained at the beginning of the show, but no particular matter - it wasn’t Brecht, so I suspect most audience members who hadn’t read any pre-show blurb picked up the general gist pretty quickly.

The show was introduced by Darby in character as Bill Napier, a Kiwi wildlife ranger (and Darby’s alleged security guard), bearing an uncanny resemblance in appearance and tone to Home & Away’s Alf Stewart, whose powerful “tree of life” salute is bound to be a hit among the kids in the know by the end of the year. Napier was a lovely character, and I would have been quite happy for him to stay on (although I presume that providing your own warm-up must have some downsides for a performer), as “proper” support act, fellow Kiwi Jamie Bowen, was a surprisingly fast talker for a Kiwi (who I always thought to be laid-back in dictation), meaning that some of his jokes and ukulele -backed lyrics were rather swallowed up in The Anvil’s auditorium.

Back as “himself”, Darby launched into the space-set look back on key moments in his life as a socially awkward child and teenager - basically a showcase for his physical comedy, sound effects, mime and and dance skills. I really must read his book to see how he manages to tell the same story in print. The moral of the story was the rather sweet (if not entirely printable) motto: “Keep being yourself, and eventually you’ll find someone who digs your s**t”. Bless. What a potty-mouthed darling Rhysiebabes is.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 19, 2012

Peeking into the box of tricks - review of Barry & Stuart : Show & Tell

Newbury Comedy Festival: Barry & Stuart - Show & Tell, at The Corn Exchange on Friday, July 6, 2012

SHORTLY after returning home from Barry & Stuart kicking off the Newbury Comedy Festival with their magic show at The Corn Exchange on Friday, I received a message from local magician Robert Bone, saying “Now you know how to do it all, I guess I’ll have some competition...”

In fact, the Scottish duo’s inspired schtick of revealing the secrets behind their trickery in the second half of the show gave me an increased respect for magicians’ mastery. Far from it all being about sleight of hand and quick wins, the amount of thought, time, inspiration and sheer effort which goes into the creation and perfection of each trick puts it even further out of the reach of us Muggles, and brings in an extra element of wonder and amazement.

Marginally less gory than some of Barry Jones & Stuart MacLeod’s previous shows (there was still a fair amount of fake blood being thrown around, though), the emphasis was firmly on demonstrating - and then revealing the secrets behind - some of the pair’s most ingenious tricks, one of which had taken them six years to prepare for performance. So it was less about the smoke and mirrors, and more about secreted technology, clever use of chemistry, magnificent memory techniques, and an au faitness with the workings of social media.

The explanations didn’t reduce the tricks themselves to a let-down, as there were none that I for one could have second-guessed (I’m sure that Robert Bone could have a good go, but I’m looking forward to testing him on that). OK, there was one exception - a feat of memory by Jones had a perfectly reasonable explanation (he used the devastating power of... his brain), but was no less impressive for it.

The “reveals” also showed how well Jones and MacLeod work as a double act; while Jones’ particular strength is his memory feat, MacLeod’s is his nimble finger work, making short shrift of any sleight of hand required. It makes for an excellent, fun and very entertaining pairing, and despite their statement at the beginning of the show that “tonight, we are going to be ending our careers”, I doubt  that will be happening for many years to come.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 12, 2012

Hard at it - interview with Adam Kotz from Case Hardin

AN acclaimed British alt country band with extensive local roots, Case Hardin are playing ACE Space in Newbury on Friday, July 20. CATRIONA REEVES spoke to band member, Newbury resident, actor, musician and ACE Space chairman ADAM KOTZ about the band and his many other hats.

CATRIONA REEVES: Case Hardin are definitely making waves on the alt country scene, with your latest album Every Dirty Mirror receiving excellent reviews and national BBC radio airplay. How would you describe the band’s sound?

ADAM KOTZ: The band was formed by Pete Gow - who until recently lived in Thatcham - who writes songs that echo the best of the American alt country scene, and artists like Springsteen and Steve Earle, but mixes it all up with a highly original British take.

We’ve played in the current line-up [Pete, Adam, Tim Emery, Andy Bastow and Jim Maving] for more than three years now, and we seem to able to take on different styles from stomping rock to ballads and story songs - as we hope the album shows.

CR: Pete’s job as a TV journalist has taken him to war zones in Iraq and Libya in recent years. Do his songs relate to these experiences?

AK: Some do directly, others more obliquely; but he also writes beautifully about lost love and hard drinking.

CR: What is your role in the band?

AK: Well, I weave my mandolin and banjo through the tunes, as well as singing backing and some lead vocals.

CR: Have you always combined being an actor with making music?

AK: Not always. I’ve played on and off in bands in between acting jobs but it’s particularly great when the two combine. For example, I started playing mandolin while playing the music teacher in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at the National Theatre in the ’90s. I’ve sung and rocked my way through a fair few theatre and TV shows as well, and written music as well – I even wrote a TV theme song back in the ’80s! My first job was the TV play Oi For England, about a skinhead band.

CR: You’ve done a lot of screen work, haven’t you?

AK: I’ve done a lot of theatre too, particularly at the National and with Cheek By Jowl, and I’d love to do more, I miss it, but it’s harder to fit in with family life.

The most well known films are probably The Last King of Scotland [he played Gillian Anderson’s husband - or, as Adam puts it, “I think you’ll find she played my wife”] and Peter Greenaway’s Nightwatching, and, yes, I’ve done quite a bit of TV too.

As it happens, I’ve just finished being in Henry IV Pt 2 in the new BBC Shakespeare Hollow Crown season  - that was great, swords, horses and lots of shouting. I play Lord Hastings, a rebel who gets his comeuppance.

That was followed by a lovely one-off play for CBBC and a spy drama for Channel 4, so the variety continues.

CR: I’ve noticed that if you turn up in a murder mystery, it inevitably means that you will turn out to be the murderer or a victim - or, on one occasion, both...

AK: Sometimes I am a bright red herring, and I have had my moments as a law enforcer. In Touching Evil I kicked in doors and arrested people - at least until I went off the rails and killed a few people. OK, you may have a point!

CR: So where does ACE Space fit in to all this?

AK: I knew the old RAFA Hall in St Nicholas Road from hiring it myself, and found out it was going to close down. Luckily, the idea to save it drew in a terrific bunch of local volunteers, and we’ve improved it and kept it running as part-village hall, part-arts workshop ever since. We have had great backing from Greenham Common Trust, and donations along the way from Sovereign, MicroFocus, Newbury Town and West Berkshire councils among others.

Especially, we have had amazing support from the many local people who hire the place, come to our events and tell us they like what we are doing. Have a look at www.acespacenewbury.com – we are always happy to welcome new people.

CR: Who else is involved in the gig?

AK: We’ve got support from Des Simmons and the Hired Hands. Des is a great local musician with a great band. Sticks and Strings’ Rick Green is opening the show, and is also well known in these parts. All of us play original music with real heart.

For ACE Space, it is the last event before our summer lay-off after a busy year so we hope people will come to help us celebrate that and enjoy a great night of live music.

Ticket for Case Hardin at ACE Space on Friday, July 20, are £5 in advance (£6 on the door) from Hogan Music in Craven Road and Jacqui’s in Blenheim Road, or call 07905 590 214 to reserve. Doors open at 7.30pm.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 12, 2012

Fingers of fun - interview with Stuart MacLeod (magicians Barry & Stuart)

SPRIGHTLY Scottish magicians Barry & Stuart, the hosts of the BBC show The Magicians, are returning to Newbury for a date at The Corn Exchange during Newbury Comedy Festival, with a show that would probably get them kicked out of the Magic Circle... if they were members.

STUART MACLEOD explained to CATRIONA REEVES why they are breaking down the fourth wall and letting the audience peek behind their brand of dark and gory magic.

CATRIONA REEVES: You’re bringing your Show & Tell to Newbury Comedy Festival - what’s the idea behind it?

STUART MACLEOD: In the first half of the show, we perform a variety of our favourite tricks and some new ones that we’ve been working on over the past year. Then, after the interval, we reveal exactly how we’ve done each trick. The audience have a choice to stay, or leave if they don’t want to know the secrets behind it.

CR: Have many audience members chosen not to stay for the second half?

SM: We don’t think there’s been many, but we have had comments from various house managers that a few people have left, saying that they’ve enjoyed what they’ve seen, but they don’t want to have the mystery spoilt. There’s often a childlike wonder and astonishment about magic, and not everyone wants to lose that.

It was a brave, and probably stupid decision to go ahead with the show, and it was a tough one to write, but how magic works is fascinating, and we wanted to let people in on the secret.

CR: How is the show going down with other magicians?

SM: A lot are really annoyed - many think that the secrets shouldn’t be revealed, so we’ve had a lot of emails. The Magic Circle has a rule that the secrets of magic shouldn’t be revealed, but we’re not members, so they can’t kick us out.

CR: Does doing the show this way present more challenges than usual?

SM: Actually, it means that if something goes wrong with a trick and we have to improvise, it means that in the second half we can explain what happened and how we dealt with it.

The hardest thing was deciding what tricks to include. There are some really great tricks in there, such as turning water into wine. It took us six years to come up with that, and we performed it on television in front of 6m people, so we were a bit reluctant to give that secret away.

On the other hand, the first half ends with an excellent new trick which we’re really pleased with, and again we had a dilemma about revealing that one.

Basically, we came up with a set of rules that we wanted to genuinely show exactly what was going on, and then there was a lot of cajoling of each other to put a really good range of stuff in there.

CR: It sounds like you should be writing a book on the back of this...

SM: There’s a lot of stuff in the show involving mobile phones and suchlike, so we’ve decided that it would work better on the internet than in the book, so we’re currently working on a website, which is where this should all end up.

We’re also working on a couple of TV  pilots at the moment - we’re not going to Edinburgh this year, because we’re devoting time to them.

CR: You and Barry (Jones) are rather like the Ant & Dec of the magic world - do you think you’ll ever work separately, or are you better together?

SM: We’ve been working together for just over 10 years, and we’ve discovered that there’s something about our writing process that means we need each other. We’re two cogs in a wheel that work best together, and we spark off each other. I don’t think we’ll ever work apart.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, July 5, 2012

John's Final Footsteps - review of The Berkshire Giant

Photograph copyright: Farrows Creative. For more photos from the event, please visit http://theberkshiregiant.blogspot.co.uk

The Berkshire Giant: John’s Final Footsteps, in Newbury town centre, on Saturday, June 23

THE town had been buzzing all week with the story of John Ever Afraid, with whispers of strange happenings in Aldworth and on Snelsmore Common spreading like wildfire, exacerbated by announcements from milk floats and the distribution of news pamphlets announcing his coming.

And so, on Saturday evening, as darkness fell, a large crowd braved the drizzle to line Northbrook Street to greet the fabled giant, hidden in the walls of Aldworth Church for hundreds of years before finally arising and trekking the 10 miles to Newbury to face his destiny.

His arrival was heralded by a doom-tinged rock & roll band atop a bus, flanked by the devil’s acolytes, stilted skeletal crows who pranced and poked at the crowd as they led the procession through the town and into the Market Place, where the music of a devilish mardi gras band welcomed John himself.

And what a darling John turned out to be. An ungainly figure, with the most soulful blinking blue eyes, he was not to be feared but was himself as timid as a kitten, as he prepared to face his destiny with the devil.

His supporters tried to fight off the acolytes but without success, and John was bowed by his fear, his head in his hands. But through the crowd came the spirit creatures of the forest, - a stag, bear, hare and horse - to save John, festooning him with colour, and bestowing him with antlers of his own.

As John rose back up to the cheers of the crowd, lanterns and fireworks lit up the sky, and a message appeared on the bank building behind him: “I am not afraid anymore”.

Visually stunning, moving, strange and wonderful, this was the culmination of The Corn Exchange’s first large-scale outdoor arts project produced in-house from scratch by creative producer Simon Chatterton, with input from Irish outdoor theatre company Macnas and a host of local volunteers.

The most ambitious project so far in the theatre’s two-year Arts Council-funded outdoor events programme, with additional funding from Greenham Common Trust and West Berkshire Council, it is really quite stunning that a community as outwardly sensible as West Berkshire can come up with something as wonderfully outlandish and beautiful as this.

I don’t know about you, but I rather like the fact that West Berkshire is a little bit weird these days. It rather suits us.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, June 28, 2012

Darby day - interview with Rhys Darby

NEW ZEALANDERS are officially easy-going - it was confirmed in an academic study last year - but I was pushing the laid back nature of a nation, when owing a series of “hilarious” phone-related issues, I was half an hour late in ringing Kiwi comedian Rhys Darby in his Los Angeles hotel room to chat to him about his forthcoming UK tour.

Fortunately, Darby did his country proud, and did not emit a single grump about my tardiness (oh, and apologies to the lady in Newbury whom I unintentionally phoned four times in my attempts to call California. I did wonder why a swanky LA hotel had a receptionist with a West Berkshire accent).  

I’’ve always been a sucker for a Kiwi accent (blame Neil Finn from Crowded House. No, really. In his younger days, he was hot. Trust me.), and as Darby didn’t seem to mind me calling him “Rhysybabes”, as befits anyone with the first name “Rhys”, my fluster soon passed, and much relaxed chat ensued. Well, 15 minutes’ worth of relaxed chat, anyway. I was ringing from my in-laws’ landline, so I had to watch the clock.

And so, with the time ticking away at premium international rate, I got on with the questions...

CATRIONA REEVES: The show you’re about to tour in the UK is called This Way To The Spaceship - and you’ve written a book with the same title as well. What’s all that about, then?

RHYS DARBY: The idea is that when Armageddon arrives, which it’s going to at the end of 2012, the superpowers have got spaceships ready with an invite list of those who will be allowed on board. Naturally, as I’m currently making waves in Hollywood, I’ll be on the list.

But I don’t want it to just be me, I want others to make it on board as well, so This Way To The Spaceship is basically my advice on how to open a few doors at parties, finding the right doors in the first place, fashion tips, conversation advice; how to work your way in with the right people and achieve your dreams.

The book is on the same theme, so the live show is basically the book interpreted through the mediums of physical stand-up, storytelling and dance.

The book has been published in Australia and New Zealand, but at the moment there’s no UK distributor. I’ll be bringing some copies with me though, for people to buy at the show. It kinds of puts a bit of mystique around the book - you’ve got to see the show to buy the book.

CR: Maybe you should give a free copy of the book to each audience member, as part of the ticket price.

RD: Mmmmm.

CR: You mentioned that there’s some dancing in the show...

RD: ... Yes. I have been compared to a sea serpent trying to mate. Off-season...

CR: ... but also, I understand that you include some dinosaur impressions.

RD: Oh yes, I’ve fed a couple of dinosaurs into the show. Not literally. I do a good t-rex, pterodactyl, velociraptor...

CR: Ooh. That could be a problem. We’ve already got a British comedian called Hugh Dennis who does a magnificent velociraptor.

RD: Maybe we should have a dinosaur impression showdown. He can be a velociraptor, and I’ll be a pterodactyl and swoop down on him.

CR: Right. Anyway, you’re best known as Murray, the band manager in the sitcom Flight of the Conchords (shown in the UK on BBC4). There’s been rumours of a film based on the series flying around for ages - any truth in them?

RD: We had a ‘secret band meeting’ a couple of weeks ago, but nothing’s really progressed yet. We want to do something, but it’s down to them [fellow Kiwis Brett McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, the musical/comedy duo who go by the name Flight of the Conchords and write/star in the series], and they’re pretty busy touring at the moment.

CR: So what are you up to in LA at the moment? Schmoozing and swinging your way into the film industry, or would you prefer to do more television?

RD: Whatever tickles my fancy. I like doing TV, because it’s more like a normal job - it lasts longer, and you get to know everyone working on it, so it becomes more like a family. Saying that, I did have a big US sitcom, and moved over here last year to work on it - and it got cancelled after just a few episodes. It was good that it was in a way; it was tightly scripted, with set up punchlines and American fake laughter. It didn’t stretch me. I like things looser and more improvised.

CR: You played one of the pirate radio DJs in Richard Curtis’ film The Boat That Rocked - that had the feel that you were all working as a family and improvising a lot of the time.

RD: We had a lot of fun on that film. We were all on the boat down in Southampton a lot of the time, and when we did our bits on the radio mic, we were really allowed to let lose and do what we wanted.

The most interesting day was when I was thrown in the ocean and nearly drowned. I was meant to be struggling to swim, but the wet suit I was wearing under my costume was making me too buoyant, so they put diving weights around my waist. I really started to struggle - so it may look like really good acting, but actually I was genuinely thinking I was going to drown.

CR: Your UK tour is going to be a far cry from LA - are you looking forward to it?

RD: Definitely. I’m also looking forward to seeing my wife and children who are going to be coming over to the UK for July and August. My two boys are six and two, and they don’t usually travel with me, so it’s going to be great to have them with me. We’re going to see all the sights. Are there any sights to see in Basingstoke?

CR: Yes. There’s Milestones, Hampshire’s Living History Museum. You can dress up in Victorian costumes, and walk around cobbled streets.

RD: Excellent. They’ll love that. We’ll have a ball in Basingstoke. Hopefully the show will be pretty good too.

* Rhys Darby brings his show, This Way To The Spaceship, to The Anvil in Basingstoke on Tuesday, July 10.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, June 28, 2012

A Hair-raising surprise - Smudgie pops up in random video on YouTube

OK, so not a complete flukey coincidence - I was searching for clips from an event I distinctly remember attending (the on-stage dance party at the end of the final West End performance of Hair - The Musical in September 2010) when I stumbled across this.

However, it was a bit of a surprise to see me flailing around like the dippy hippy I am on some random stranger's video clip. I guess it's quite nice to be caught unawares in one of the most magical, uplifting moments of your life in some ways.

Newsroom magic - video demonstration by magician Robert Bone

FOLLOWING on from my Out & About feature on magician Robert Bone a few months ago, the man himself popped into the Newbury Weekly News newsroom recently to wow us with a specially-devised trick centred around the magazine article.

I reckon he must have manipulated my mind back in September, when I interviewed him. It's the only explanation.

Watch on, to see me giggling like a little girl.

Lovely... have I said that before? - review of Isy Suttie

Isy Suttie: Pearl And Dave, in The Forge at The Anvil, Basingstoke on Thursday, June 6

RIGHT: I’m going to set myself a challenge with this review. I used the word “lovely” or derivations thereof twice in my interview with Isy Suttie a few weeks ago, several times to her face after the Basingstoke show which I will be focussing on here, and a stonking four times in my last review of comedian Jimeoin. I even used it just now in reference to my toddler spooning rice pudding onto her shepherd’s pie. I have decided that I overuse the word, and I am therefore banning myself from using it any further after this paragraph in my write-up of Suttie’s show. Even though it was lovely (there - sneaked it in).

So, armed with a thesaurus, I will attempt to present to you the heart-warming charm of a one-woman show performed by Suttie (best known as Dobby in Channel 4’s Peep Show with a guitar, telling the story through monologue and song of  stifled Northern accountant Dave and equally repressed Surrey housewife Pearl. Having had a near-holiday romance a decade previously, the couple reignite their relationship in the modern manner on Facebook and Skype, finding a mutual bond through an understanding of each other missing from their everyday existence.

Suttie intertwined this imagined story with true (I presume) tales of her own disastrous lovelife prior to meeting her current partner; each relationship beginning with hope and ending with a symbol of doom, from the giant papier mache penguin watching accusingly from the corner of the room, to the boyfriend who took advantage of her sleeping on a train, not to write messages of love on her hand, but to colour it in entirely in black pen.

The telling was interspersed with songs performed in the voices of Pearl (high, rather posh) and Dave (deep, earthy) which demonstrated a delightful lack of self-consciousness on Suttie’s behalf, as her natural tone, showcased on a song written in schoolroom Welsh for her new partner, is actually very sweet.

Like master storyteller Daniel Kitson, the magic of Suttie’s performance was how perfectly truth and fiction interwove, as she was kept in the loop regarding the imagined blossoming relationship between Dave and Pearl through penpal letters from Dave, started in childhood when an addressed balloon freed by Suttie and destined for Australia ended up two gardens away. Such detailed touches made the telling spring to life, and left the audience glowing with delight for both the star-crossed titular couple and Suttie’s own hard-earned happiness. Truly captivating.

• First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, June 14, 2012

Going back to your roots - family history feature

Above: 1872 Smith wedding - the bride is Bill's great-great-grandmother, Sarah Smith, and the boy on the far left is his great-grandfather James Smith. The family lived and worked at Wyld Court Farm, Hampstead Norreys

HAVE I ever told you that I’m a direct descendent of King Henry III and Robert the Bruce on my mother’s side? I have? It means I can trace my line back all the way to King Herod, you know. And it makes me a distant cousin of the Queen. Isn’t that fascinating? Where are you going? Come back!

When I first started researching my family tree (to be fair, I already had a general idea about my royal ancestry), it was the big hitters that floated my boat. William the Conquerer? Get in there! Ethelred the Unready? Back of the net! But after a while, all the names started to merge into one, and it all got a bit dull. After all, the theory goes that statistically it’s quite likely that every European living today is descended from the ninth century emperor Charlemagne. Yes, even you.

That’s not to say that I didn’t uncover some interesting facts along the way - I’m a distant relative of Gabriel Cox, the second mayor of Newbury (and thus can claim the coveted kinship to John and Frances West - meaning I could attend Christ’s Hospital school if I really wanted to); and my great-grandfather x 12 was Sir John Hawkins, Admiral of Elizabeth I’s fleet, hero of the Armada, cousin to Sir Francis Drake, and, er, “father of slavery”. Maybe I should keep that one quiet.

However, once I’d stopped being dazzled by these celebrities of the past, I became more interested in looking a bit closer to home, time-wise (I blame Richard Madeley’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are?. That man could turn me on to anything). In particular, although both my parents were children of Reading, it was surprising how many branches of my dad’s tree brought me back to West Berkshire; while on my mum’s side, I found it greatly amusing that her parents, with the surnames McDougall and McIver, and terribly proud of their Scottish roots, were in fact Londoners back through several generations - and with an interesting possible native marriage in India in the mid-19th century which might explain our dark colouring.

While some surmising had to be done without the help of the army of researchers that celebrities on Who Do You Think You Are? have at their disposal, I’ve been able to piece together some interesting life stories; generations of labourers uprooted from their isolated existence in the rural idyl of Chute Forest in Wiltshire to work firstly on the estates of grand landowners such as the Benyons of Englefield (explains why I have an urge to tug my forelock whenever I see our MP) and then into the factories of Reading; the fate of many of our ancestors not so very long ago.

The biggest bombshell for me was the discovery that my grandfather was the product of a first-cousin marriage - probably family-engineered after both parties were widowed and left with children to support during the First World War. Turned out that this was a surprise to no one but me, with the rest of the family having been fully aware of it for many decades. Sadly, his father died just a few years later, leaving his mother with even more children. Unable to cope, she was forced to send her youngest children away from Reading to an orphanage in Hampshire. Fortunately my grandad had happy memory of these years, and he remained particularly close to the brother and sister who had been there with him.

As I got into the swing of my research (aided by useful, if sometimes pricey websites such as Ancestry, Find My Past and Genes Reunited), I expanded to start looking into the family history of my husband Bill. With his mum and dad born and bred in Hungerford and Thatcham respectively, I wasn’t surprised to discover that  both sides of the family can be traced back through West Berkshire and its surroundings for several generations. They included a George Liddiard of Aldbourne, who in the 1830 agricultural workers' uprising known as the Swing Riots, destroyed a threshing machine and was sentenced to 18 months' hard labour in Reading Gaol. He was lucky not to be deported to Australia, the fate of many of his fellow rioters. His absence appears to have hit his daughter hard and maybe she indulged in a little teenage rebellion; by the time George was released, he was unexpectedly a grandfather.

A particular treat was to stumble across the wedding photo of BIll’s Great-Great Grandmother, Sarah Smith, on the Ancestry website, uploaded by another distant relative. I am pretty sure that the boy on the far left of the photo is his Great Grandfather James Smith, another child born out of wedlock to the teenage Sarah. His dark colouring certainly seems to have survived through the generations, although I am glad to say that the women of the family are not so plain these days. James never took his mother’s married name, but did move with his mother and new stepfather from Wyld Court Farm (today home to The Living Rainforest) in Hampstead Norreys, where his family lived and worked as servants and farmhands, to the nearby hamlet of Eling.

Yet another apparently fatherless boy in BIll’s family was his great-grandfather Henry Ainsworth. With a surname originating in the North West of England, it is almost certain that Henry was the first Ainsworth to arrive in West Berkshire. He had spent much of his childhood in a London orphanage before being boarded out to Newbury at the age of 13 in 1887 - possibly to work on a farm, as in the 1891 census he is listed as living as a boarder with the family of a carter called George Hillier at Bradford’s Farm in Speen.

Henry had been orphaned at the age of 10, when his mother, Fanny, died in a London hospital. Other than a record of her death, I have been unable to find out little about Fanny. Was she a Londoner, married to an Ainsworth, or had she arrived in the capital as an unmarried mother from another part of the country, maybe hoping to pass as a widow rather than a fallen woman? Her story will probably never be known.

Fortunately, Henry had a happier ending - he married Mary Cox, a Hungerford girl, and they had five sons and two daughters. Although we know nothing of his experiences as a youthful farmhand, at a time when many of his contemporary orphans were deported to the British colonies, where it is widely documented that they were often badly mistreated, it appears that fate may have been a luckier one. If you meet an Ainsworth in West Berkshire nowadays, it is quite likely that they will be a descendent of Henry, the London orphan.

My great-grandmother Helen Eyles,  born at 3 Englefield Street on the Englefield estate where her parents worked, pictured with all her children. My grandfather, Reginald Reeves, whom my son George resembles, is on the right

FOR those who want to take their family history research a step further, the Berkshire Family History Society offers wealth of excellent resources. The editor of the society’s quarterly journal, Berkshire Family Historian, Penny Stokes, told me more about it.

Catriona Reeves: What do those joining or contacting Berkshire FHS tend to be most interested in finding out?

Penny Stokes: Most people know the basic - dates and places of birth, marriage and death - of their parents, and to a lesser extent their grandparents. From then on, working back to 1837 (the start of civil registration) and 1841 (the first systematic census) seems fairly easy, because so much is online. But the quality of online material is so variable that many people need help in exploring the alternative routes when they can't find what ought to be there, such as a great-grandparent who is unaccountably missing from the census, or a birth which seems not to have been registered.

Before 1837 it gets trickier: you have to search parish records for baptisms, marriages and burials. Some of these are online (again, in varying quality) but many are not. There are of course a myriad of other sources. The society has a wonderful Family History Research Centre in Reading, where members can access a vast range of sources online, on CD, on microfiche and in print. I have no Berkshire family, but I've been a member of Berkshire Family History Society since the early 1990s because the society's resources are so much wider than just Berkshire. 

CR: What have you found out about your own family through your personal research?

PS: I learned that one of my great-grandfathers was Bram Stoker's accountant, and on my mother's side there were some very active Irish republicans in the struggle for independence. So I describe myself as a cross between Irish rebels and Dracula's accountant. I haven't gone back much before the mid-18th century because I'm really more interested in finding out the stories behind the most recent six or eight generations.

CR: A lot of mine and my husband's ancestors were farm labourers in the villages around West Berkshire. Would the Berkshire FHS be able to help me learn more about what life would have been like for them? 

PS: Most people researching family history want to fill in the background of how their ancestors lived, so local and social history play a large part in family history. The Berkshire Family History Society has regional branches (one in Newbury) where monthly meetings are held with speakers, and the topics focus on just this sort of thing.

House history too is a major interest; if your ancestors lived in, say, a particular farmhouse for three generations you'd want to find out about the house too, and as far as Berkshire is concerned the Berkshire Record Office is the place to do that. And it just happens to be right next door to the society's Family History Research Centre in Reading!

CR: Something we have noticed in our research is that there appears to be a fair bit of illegitimacy in our West Berks family trees, with the father being unnamed - more than I expected. Have society members have come across that a lot in their own trees?

PS: There's never yet been a family which didn't have secrets; it doesn't do to be too sensitive or judgmental. Pregnant brides are were very common, particularly in rural areas, where it was almost the norm for a couple to test their fertility before marriage, and disgrace only attached to failing to get to the altar before the birth. If an unmarried father isn't named in the birth or baptism record, he may be traceable in the records of the overseers of the poor, who may have awarded maintenance.

Illegitimacy sometimes arose because of religious dissent - a Quaker couple, for example, might refuse on principle to marry in a C of E church. They could find themselves being reported in the churchwardens' presentments. Other skeletons in the cupboard could be children given away or abandoned, bigamy, a spell in the workhouse, criminality, insanity... Most of these things are on record somewhere. 

CR: Through your editorship of the journal, is there anything unexpected that you've discovered about old Berkshire?

PS: I was surprised to find how local surnames have remained strongly local, despite the massive increase in geographical mobility. West of Newbury there is still a concentration of names like Coxhead, Pocock, Liddiard and Tubb, just as there was in parish registers of the seventeenth century. You can check surname distribution out, comparing 1881 with 1998 on http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org

CR: What advice would you give to those starting to research their families, beyond using the usual websites, and any pitfalls that they should avoid?

PS: Start with all the information you can glean from living relatives. Read a good book on the whole subject so that you understand the sources before you start blundering around on the web (which can get expensive). Don't imagine you can do it all on the web; much valuable information is not online but in record offices, and nothing beats actually getting out and walking the ground that your ancestors walked.

And, of course, join the Berkshire Family History Society, through which you will get a great deal of information and support, not to mention the company of like-minded people.

CR: And what makes it so fascinating for those that do start researching their family?

PS: It becomes utterly compulsive, particularly if you are in the second half of your life, and your parents are no longer alive. Roots are important. Having had an RAF upbringing I thought I had no home town, so I was delighted to find that I was a seventh-generation Londoner. It's as well to remember, though, that almost nobody is going to be quite as excited by your discoveries as you are!

* First published in Out & About magazine, May 2012

The Suttie show: interview with Isy Suttie

LOVEABLE comedian Isy Suttie is on tour with a heartwarming show about internet romance and real-life dating disasters. Catriona Reeves spoke to her while on route from Birmingham to Berwick-Upon-Tweed.

CATRIONA REEVES: You’re currently on tour with a show called Pearl And Dave. Are you preparing for the Edinburgh Fringe?

ISY SUTTIE: This is actually the show I did at the Fringe last year, and also on Radio 4. I can’t do Edinburgh this year because I’ll be filming the next series of Peep Show over the summer. It’s actually nice to give my brain a bit of a break - if I had been developing a new show, I would have had to start thinking about it around Christmas.

CR: I thought Peep Show [Suttie plays quirky geek Dobby in the Channel 4 sitcom] had ended!

IS: We had a break from it last year so it hasn’t been on since 2010, but two more series have been commissioned. I’m really looking forward to going back to it. Everyone involved in it feels like family, and David [Mitchell] and Rob [Webb, who play the central characters] are a real laugh.

I’m lucky that I’ve ended up being able to do a mix of things; Peep Show, the touring, and I’m working on a sitcom pilot. I can’t imagine just doing the one thing. Touring as a stand-up can be a bit lonely, although it is a nice feeling that you’ve done it all yourself. 

Luckily I’ve got a support act with me on this tour - Chris Neill, who is in the car with me right now. We’re on our way from Birmingham to Berwick-upon-Tweed. We didn’t realise how far it was until we set off. It’s about a six hour drive!

CR: So tell me about the show Pearl And Dave...

IS: It’s the story of a couple who met at Butlins, then get in contact through Facebook many years later. I perform their emails to each other as songs. Then there’s stuff about my own love life over the years mixed in.

I’ve always performed songs in my shows; I can’t imagine doing something without music, as I’ve been songwriting since I was 11. But it’s taken a long time to get comfortable with a show format where I can fit everything together. Now I’ve found that having a narrative and singing in character really works best for me. It’s a bit more theatrical than what people might have previously seen me do.

CR: Are you planning to take the show further afield?

IS: I’d like to take it to Australia next year. I’ve performed in Australia before, and they’re very comedy savvy over there, so they’re happy to embrace something that’s a bit idiosyncratic. Generally though, I’m not that fussed about travelling. I like to go home to my own bed wherever possible - I’ll be able to do that after the Basingstoke gig.

CR: You seem like such a warm person; do you tend to attract a nice audience?

IS: My audiences are lovely. When Chris and I turned up at the Birmingham venue last night, we got a bit worried because it seemed to be full of rowdy hen parties, but then we found that we were performing in a different room, and there was my audience, with their anoraks and flasks. I was very relieved.

Isy Suttie brings her show, Pearl And Dave, to The Forge at The Anvil, Basingstoke on Wednesday, June 6. Anoraks and flasks are welcome.

• First published in Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, May 24, 2012