I know that not everybody shares the objections in principle (the principle being that any savings will end up coming at the expense of staff and by ramping up prices) so here is a practical objection. The story from the Crawley News which reads like it has been largely cut and pasted from a council press release, says that the new management company

…has experience in running theatres, being part way through a ten-year contract to manage the Playhouse Theatre and Winter Gardens complex in Weston-Super-Mare.

Slightly weaselly words there. When it says ‘part way through a ten-year contract’ it implies a lot of experience. Reading it you focus on ten years rather than part way. How big a part is it exactly? The contract in Weston-Super-Mare started in April 2011 so it has now been running for 9 months. Presumably the negotiations and tendering process will have taken a while, so conceivably at the time they put in their bid the only experience they had of running a large theatre was in winning a contract and not in successfully managing it for any length of time.

The real concern, therefore, is that not only has the deal been made with what is effectively an unproven company but that it is locked in for ten years. That is a long time to live with it if they turn out to not be so good after all.

It is almost as if the Tories running the council want to get us locked into the deal quickly and for a long time while they still can. Are they starting to get a bit worried about keeping control of the town hall in May?

Rick Wakeman signing stuff for the faithful after the show

Last night I went out to see Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson playing at the Hawth theatre in Crawley.   Rick Wakeman. Jon Anderson.  In Crawley!

This was the second date on their 20-date ‘Anderson-Wakeman Project 360′ tour, coming to a provincial town near you soon, and the ticket was a birthday present from Chrystal which makes her position as favourite daughter pretty nigh unassailable.There was a strange emotional resonance to this.  The first concert I ever went to featured Wakeman and Anderson – when they played with Yes at the Wembley Arena on the Tormato tour.  Or, as it was billed: the Tormatour.

This was a very different evening for all sorts of reasons: the scale, the volume, the crowds and the atmosphere.  And the average age of the audience of course.  The crowd was a veritable symphony of male-pattern baldness though there were a surprising number of females and even teenagers there.  Living with Jayne’s almost pathological dislike of Yes it is easy to forget that some women actually like prog rock.

Knowing what a full-blown Yes concert is like, it was a little depressing to see just two keyboards and an acoustic guitar on the stage, surrounded by loads of little candles that must have given the fire inspectors a heart attack.  Of course I knew what to expect from the publicity and from watching some Youtube clips of an earlier tour so I wasn’t too disappointed.

The show alternated between new songs from Jon and Rick’s forthcoming album and old Yes songs.  You knew whether the next song was going to be old or new by whether Jon picked his guitar up.  All the new songs were just keyboard and voice, but the old songs had guitar too.

I can’t remember much about the new songs.  One was about a tree and another about gardens, and they were all nice enough.  They must be OK because nobody minded that they were getting about an hour of totally unheard music.  Concert crowds are normally quite resistant to ‘a bit of new’.

The old songs were mostly from the earlier Yes albums: Time & A Word, Starship Trooper, Yours Is No Disgrace, And You & I, Soon for example.  There were a couple of tracks from Going for the One, one from the AWBH album and, surprisingly, Owner of a Lonely Heart.  And Roundabout. Obviously.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that Yes’ most commercially successful single was played, but this is the song that Rick (who wasn’t in the band at the time) has been known to refer to as ‘Owner of a horse & cart’.

Inbetween the songs was plenty of banter.  We all know what Rick Wakeman is like from his appearances on Grumpy Old Men and other TV programmes, but it was a revelation to see Jon having a lark about.   Normally you just see him introducing the odd song in spiritual, hippy mode.

The overwhelming atmosphere of the show was one of affection.  You could sense the affection that the audience had for the performers, which suited the intimacy of the venue compared to places like the Wembley Arena.  The performances were on a more human scale and the between-song banter was more conversational that is possible in a massive venue.

I can’t pretend that I missed the extra dimension that Chris Squire’s extra vocals would have added (and Steve Howe’s to a lesser extent), not to mention his bass, as well as the electric guitars and – of course – the drums.  I am fairly unsophisticated and for me the more drummers the better.  I also missed the Wakeman extravagance at the keyboards.  Most of the arrangements involved just piano and string sounds and a blast of the old full orchestra effects and Moog noises would have been nice – but we all knew that was never going to happen.

What we did get was Jon Anderson’s remarkable voice.  One or two people said afterwards that they thought his voice had gone, but most, including me, thought it was still great.  A lot of the time it was deeper and more gravelly than it used to be, but he showed at times that he could still sing pure high notes: it is just that the arrangement of the songs wasn’t calling for it.  The instrumental side was totally rearranged, so why not the vocals?

About the arrangements.  Sometimes it is frustrating when a band make changes to an old favourite song, altering the tune or tempo.  I can understand that, and feel it a bit myself, particularly when there is some small detail of a song that you really, really like and that has been removed.  I think it is only human to feel that to an extent, but really there is no point in somebody doing a perfect imitation of their record: you might as well just stay at home and listen to the record!

Remember also that this was two-fifths of the classic line-up of Yes and Yes were supposed to be a progressive rock band.  Surely that implies that they should always be striving to experiment and change things?  It resulted in a brilliant reggae-tinged version of Time & a Word.

Perhaps the hardest thing was getting used to seeing the pair of them looking quite normal.  No more skin-tight spangly jumpsuit and cape for Rick – just a long black overcoat.  No billowing kaftan for Jon – trainers, jeans and jacket, albeit one with a bit of a Jackson Pollock theme to it.  Jon actually had a bit of a Back to the Future look to him.  Also it was quite amusing seeing them walk on together because although he is no giant, Rick is taller than average and Jon , although no dwarf, is a bit shorter than average.  Rick may not have the waist-length hair of old, but it is still quite long.  The combined effect of hair, long coat, and size difference did give a momentary impression of a wizard walking on with a hobbit – but I say that in an affectionate way.

Overall, it was an honour to see these two grace the stage in Crawley. Rick’s hands still flow effortlessly across the keyboards, and Jon still has a voice that a colleague tells me he could listen to if he just sung the phone book.  OK it may not have had any drums but even so it was music for the mind, heart and soul.

There was lots of merchandise on sale in the foyer, and Rick came out afterwards to sign anything that anybody put in front of him and pose for photos.  The queue was huge and Rick was being very friendly and approachable, spending time chatting to everybody so it must have been very late by the time the last person was seen to.

I bumped into a couple of people from work who I didn’t know were going, and compared notes afterwards.  The verdict was that it was a bloody good show.  It was certainly well-attended, despite surely being one of the most expensive ticket prices ever at the Hawth.

My only quibble about the evening was an annoying high-pressure hiss from the sound system.  I don’t know if this was a fault or just something badly set up, but once you notice it you can’t un-hear it.  Apart from that, the sound was fantastic as you would expect from a place designed for acoustics – miles better than the harsh edge to the system at K2 when Paul Weller played there.

It can’t be number of paying punters either.  One sell-out show at the O2 Arena will have as many people as a whole month of shows at the Hawth.

There is some speculation that it is all about just the number of shows put on, ot the amount collected for the PRS.  Could be something in that.

Even when the Hawth has a dance show or stage musical there could be PRS royalties for the music used, and maybe a show like Metallica sdoesn’t count because they do all their own material (except for a Motorhead cover).   Maybe I am just falling into the trap of only thinking about rock/pop concerts, while the PRS will give a school brass band performance or ballet equal weight?

Either way, I still think my own personal list of favourite venues will continue to be topped by the Kentish Town Forum, Shepherds Bush Empire, Brixton Academy and Hammersmith Odeon – or whatever they are all called now.   This bit of press releasery from the PRS doesn’t necessarily mean the Hawth is ‘better’ than the O2 Arena – though it would make an interesting strapline on their publicity material – but it does offend the inner-nerd to see such lists without knowing the criteria.

Screen grab of QT with fat bloke prominent in the front row

This second installment is not about the issues discussed on the programme, but just what you might call the human interest angle, and some glimpses behind the scenes which may (or may not) put some aspects of the show in a different light. Be warned, this a long one: sorry for that.

Which reminds me: must remember to tell mum that this is still on iPlayer.

Arrival

We were told to arrive at the Hawth between 6:00 and 6:30pm and that it would all be over by 9:30pm.  From this we had sort of assumed that filming might start by maybe 7:00 or 7:30, last 90 minutes or more with the results to be edited down to an hour for transmission, but we were wrong on that.

The actual filming is actually done as if it is live, for about 59 minutes, and the result is broadcast as it happened – so that would scupper any conspiracy theories about chopping out bits that support any particular view.

So with only about an hour taken up actually filming, what happens for the other two to two-and-a-half hours?

First of all there is security.  On entering the Hawth everybody was searched and gone over with a metal detector, they were then checked on the list of invited/vetted audience members and given some bits of paper.

Milling around

One bit of paper was a brief description of that night’s panel and the other was a form to write a question on.  Previously we had all submitted a question by e-mail, and on the night we handed in a second question, so some time was spent with tea, coffee and snacks while scribbling out questions and generally milling about.

I saw a few people there that I know, including Chris Oxlade, Darren from Crawley’s hospital radio, a girl from work, an ex-member of Broadfield Labour party who moved away a few years ago, and Arshad Khan…

Mr Khan turned up a bit late and created a small amount of anticipation amongst those who recognised him.  Was he going to be in the audience?   If so, should we have a friendly word in a BBC ear to warn them of his reputation – or just look forward to a more exciting than normal show?   While still mentally tossing a coin we sam him leave, so presumably he turned up without a ticket and failed to persuade anybody he should be let in.  We watched him depart with a mixture of relief and regret.

Some members of the public were a little disappointed to find that the bar, although open, was not serving alcohol.  Probably a good idea.  I don’t think that letting people have a couple of beers beforehand is a good recipe for having a sensible, reasoned political debate, despite what Crawley Labour party’s constituency meetings think.

Pep talk

Anyway, after some time for all this we were gathered together in the foyer for some words about how the evening would proceed, and this was surprising because this pep-talk was given by David Dimbleby himself., where you might have expected a member of the production team or other warm-up act.   It was very disconcerting seeing him standing there. My first thought was that he is taller than he looks on TV, then I realised that was because I had never seen him standing up.  In fact I previously had no firm evidence that his body even had a bottom half.

DD explained the way questions are chosen – that they sort them into piles for each topic, and choose from the most popular topics.  Interesting this because I had assumed there would be an element of choosing questions based partly on who the guests are.  For example, last week they would have taken advantage of having the BAA chief exec on the show and picked an airport question regardless and so this week there would be questions on America to take advantage of Christopher Meyer and Europe to take advantage of having the Minister for Europe there – but apparently not.

Of course, some of the guests will have been chosen because of their relevance to anticipted questions based on what is going on, and some of us will have chosen questions based on the areas of expertise of the panel  either in an attempt to make them more likely to get chosen or in the hope of getting a more informed answer.  Either way, circumstances mean that the producers probably do not get too surprised by which questions turn out to be most popular.

DD was at great pains to point out that the show belongs to the audience, and repeatedly offered encouragement to behave like fish-starved sea lions and clap at every possible opportunity.  He spoke very well,  telling some rather amusing anecdotes I will not repeat – it would spoil it for anyone going to a future show.  He also explained the order of events for the rest of the evening, after which a member of the production team went over some of the more mundane housekeeping issues.

One other thing: DD said he was very impressed by the nibbles, which included fresh fruit, nuts, crisps and biscuits, saying that normally there is only biscuits and that Crawley had been excessively hospitable., and he was not wrong: I particularly enjoyed the fruit.

Getting to the front by accident

We were told that the seats would be filled from the front, so anybody who was dead set on being in the front row should make sure they got to the front of the queue.   My work colleague said she wanted to be in the front so her family wouldn’t miss her and went off to join the queue immediately.  I said I would hang around and aim for the back, but it didn’t work out that way.

I joined the queue nearer the back, chatting to a (Lib Dem) friend, Darren,  who happens to be a wheelchair user, plus Chris Oxlade and his friend Nick.  One of the staff came along and told Darren they would make the necessary arrangements for him and asked if he wanted us to sit with him.  Darren didn’t really want to be on his own so my ambitions of being at the back were thwarted.  I made the best of it by making the requisite gestures to my co-worker as we breezed past her in the queue to go in first.

I wheeled Darren into the designated wheelchair space and took what cover I could behind him, letting Chris take the chair next to him right at the front, with Nick next to me.  At this point Nick decided he didn’t like being so exposed and said he would go to the main seating instead, and Chris went to keep him company.  I couldn’t then just sit behind Darren so I had to move forward and felt extremely exposed, being in one of the most prominent seats.

At this point the people whose questions were selected were called.  Each one was asked a few questions, mainly to give some time for the crew to note their positions and the best camera angles for them so that when the Dimbleby called them everything could be in place. After this, they were all taken away to be given their questions back.  They were away for some time so they may have got some sort of pep talk as well.

Warming up

Meanwhile, back in the auditorium, there were two dry-runs.  In the first five audience members took the place of panellists and the production manager stood in for Dimbleby.   Other audience members then asked some questions and the stunt-double panel answered them.  All this was to make sure all the micriphones were working and for the camera and sound operators to get used to the layout – and for the audience to get used to them so it wouldn’t be a total surprise when a camera appeared over their shoulder or a boom operator had to squeeze in front of them later.

This was all very interesting, and a great chance for the five ‘panellists’ to have some fun.  It went on for quite a while and was every bit as good as the real thing.  We were told that this could be watched by using the red button later on, but I couldn’t find it.

After this sort of rehearsal for the technicians, the panellists came on with David Dimbleby and there wasa practise question.  This was partly so the crew could make sure all the mics wer properly adjusted for the panellists before it started properly, but also to get everybody warmed up before the show started for real.

This was a bit like getting a real-life DVD extra: a question from the audience, plus replies that are not broadcast, which was good for us although a waste of a question really.  They find sometimes that the debate generated is so good they regret that it will not be in the show, but they do not re-ask the question later: that really would not work.

In our case the question asked was about the Jonathan Ross thing.  This was interesting because Christopher Meyer has some involvement in his capacity as chair of the PCC and gave a different perspective than I have seen in the many other discussions of the topic.  He made some amusing comments about ‘taste and decency’ which will explain to viewers of the broadcast show why there was more laughter than you would have expcted in response to his use of the phrase – it was a sort of in-joke with the audience.

Everybody said, as they are practically obliged to, that the Ross/Brand incident was wrong, but Caroline Flint also said something that is often not mentioned whenever the affair is discussed: that she enjoys watching the Jonathan Ross show and is entertained by it.  Strange how a show with such high ratings never has anybody say they watch it or enjoy it, so it was refreshing to hear.

The real thing

After that, the recording itself started and the rest was exactly as it appeared on the telly, as far as I saw anyway: I didn’t watch all of it because I had, after all, seen it already.  I left Jayne to watch out for appearances of the back of my head and Chrystal to look out for her schoolmates.

Students

Talking of which…  Thomas Bennet runs a politics A level course, and they were given a bunch of tickets, about ten I think, so they were well-represented.  It must have been a great experience for them, and a wonderful help to their studies.  There were also quite a few politics students from Sussex Uni.  The students played a full part in the actual show, but contributed even more to the two dry runs, contributing a couple of members to the ersatz panel.

Let nobody say that youngsters are not interested in politics!  They may not be so keen on joining political parties as some previous generations were, but the ones at the Hawth were not only interested but informed, rational, and level-headed.  They were also amusing and, most importantly, real human beings.  When discussions about ‘youth’ take place there is so often a presumed dichotomy of youth and society as if youngsters are outside society and not part of it.

Of course many (or even most?) students and other youngsters are not interested in politics, but then most adults are not either.

I would love to see some of the students at the recording turn up to take part in, for example, the Broadfield Forum meetings and not for any condescending reasons of inclusion but because I think they would raise the quality of debates.  For similar reasons, I would love to see some of those A level students at Labout party meetings.

So anyway, the students got their chance to participate, they also chatted with some of the politicians afterwards and had a group photo taken afterwards with them.  Not only will it be an evening they will remember for some time, but it won’t do their studies any harm either – nor will their contrbution and behaviour do Thomas Bennet’s reputation any harm either: they were a credit to the town.

Conclusions

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, despite my unfortunate seat placement.  I may have  my own opinions on the quality of the show these days, but it is still better than the rest, and the crew were remarkable.

I was impressed by their thoroughness but would expect nothing less; they are, after all, professionals experienced in their own fields doing something they have done many times before, so efficiency and competence should be assumed.  What cannot always be assumed is their treatment of the public.

I have been at TV recordings or live broadcasts where the public are treated as props and herded like cattle, and there was none of that at all – so sincere thanks to Mentorn for that.  I have never felt so respected or welcome in a TV studio before.   I can thoroughly recommend the experience to anybody and would say that if the show is ever coming near you try to get a ticket.

Jayne enjoyed pointing out my cameo appearance so much that I am considering getting another tattoo.  The suggestion is that I should have written across my belly, if they have enough ink, “as seen on TV“.

The BBC's Question Time at the Hawth theatre, January 22nd 2009

That’s ominous isn’t it?  “part one”…   It is not that I intend to go on and on at such great length that it requires two parts, though I can’t promise that I won’t, it is just that I want to separate comments on the content of the show and a description of the mechanics of the recording which may be of interest to those unable to get in, or going to future shows.  This is the one about the content.

By the way, the show is available on the BBC’s iPlayer for the next week.

One thing you will not have seen last night was me saying anything, and there are several good reasons for that.  The first and most trivial reason is that, from videoconference experience at work, I know exactly how damn fat I look on TV and don’t wish to draw undue attention to that.  (So why was I sitting right at the front?  That’ sin part two!)

The second reason is that neither of my pre-submitted questions was selected.  Everybody submits a couple of questions beforehand which are sorted into topic and the producers choose a question from each of the most popular topics.  As it happens, the questions I wanted to ask were asked by others, sort of.  For the record, my questions, as far as I can remember, were:

Do the panel think that MPs’ expenses should be published in full, or are 26 categories enough?

Maybe a little off-message for a Labour PPC, but I genuinely interested in what justifications could be given for the different points of view, since my own opinion on this is so fluid at the moment.  I tried to make the question neutral.

The other question was:

Last month Ken Clarke said “the need to work with Obama will influence my party’s position on Europe”.  Was he right and does the same apply to other parties.

OK, slightly calculated to be an opportunity for some stirring up of the Tories’ internal conflicts on Europe in the hope it would open up some old wounds but a fair question.  It just so happened that Chris Oxlade had virtually the same question and his one got picked.

I was quite pleased with the question.  I thought it was better than trotting out the party line on something – and then I got home later and found my daily email from Labour head office contained very similar comments from Caroline Flint – so I was inadvertantly intending to trot out the party line anyway.

Had I the opportunity for a third potential question it would have been something like:

Having followed the elections and handover of power in the US, are there any elements of the US system that the panel would like to see introduced over here?

Personally I like the idea of a handover period for the outgoing regime to tie up loose ends and the incoming to prepare themselves, I like the fixed terms, and I like the way US presidents can choose their staff rather than having civil servants of unknown sympathies and commitment foisted on them.  I throughly dislike the so-called midnight legislation and presidential pardons.

The other reason I was not seen to speak comes down to a sort of shyness, or reluctance to be pushy and force my own view on everybody – probably a bad trait for someone standing for election, but never mind.  I get that sort of thing out of my system here.   Also some of the things I would have most liked to say would not have been helpful, being at a slight tangent to the debate or only worth saying if they could be said immediately.

For example, when Christopher Meyer said that the bonus culture is totally wrong and nobody should get a bonus just for doing their job.  One response to that is that it depends on the job.  Some jobs have a basic salary set at a lower level in expectation of a bonus.  I have seen pay negotiations where a company has resisted, say, a 5% claim saying they couldn’t afford it, then offer 2% plus a 5% bonus if results were good enough that they could afford it.  The unions have accepted it as a decent compromise, and so on – but the nature of QT doesn’t lend itself to lengthy or detailed debate.  It is all in shorthand and dumbed down to an extent.  Everyone takes it for granted that bonus = fat cat bankers getting million pound lump sums.

Remember the show is only an hour long and they can cram in 5 or 6 main questions, so such weghty issues as the entire economy have to be dealt with in an average of ten minutes.

The sort of response that would fit into the QT format would be:

• If Christopher Meyer doesn’t believe anybody should get a bonus for just doing their job, does he ever leave a tip when he eats out or takes a taxi?
• If it is wrong to reward somebody for just doing their job, why is the honours system used to reward civil servants for just doing their job SIR Christopher?

Meyer seemed like a nice bloke, but I think they are both valid questions and I was biting my tongue not to try and make the last point.

The only other time I felt that I had something to say that nobody else looked like picking up on, I just couldn’t think of a way to phrase it right and succinctly enough. (There was another time, but I’ll come to that)

Liam Fox (and how disappointed we were to find out it was not the *real* Doctor Fox on the show) had spoken about how loyal Kenneth Clarke is and how he would recognise collective responsibility and not speak out against the official party position on Europe – whatever that is.   He said this twice in two different ways and it sort of seemed like he was saying that the real reason Clarke was on the front benches was to do with the old phrase about wanting somebody inside the tent pissing out rather than outside the tent pissing in.

Was he really suggesting that Ken is in the shadow cabinet primarily to shut him up?

Dimbleby gave up all attempts at subtlety in his attempts to look inside Caroline Flint's jacket

When they were talking about the detail of the Northern Rock agreements, and seeing Caroline Flint struggling a bit I was sitting ther wishing she would have the guts to say something like “at the time I was spending 12 hours a day on the detail of the housing portfolio so how the bloody hell should I know?”

I do sometimes despair of the climate of debate where it is seen as a crime to not know everything.  If government was so simple that any person could hold all the details of it all then we wouldn’t need ministers and departments but just one really clever bloke in charge of everything.

Otherwise, general impressions: Christopher Meyer seemed like a decent sort but then as an ex-diplomat you could assume that a key skill of his is to make people like him.   Laws seemed OK too.  I’m glad he raised the point about the Guantanamo detaineees being innocent until proven guilty – I had been on the verge of overcoming my aversion to the spotlight to make that point because I think it is important.  Obviously I like Caroline Flint, and not just for the obvious reasons.  Foxy I thought came across as OK for a Tory, though a bit lightweight.  The journalist woman didn’t make much of an impression at all.

As for Dimbleby…  he was not as rude as he was last week.  I caught part of the programme last week and while one guest was in the middle of an answer he turned his back on them to ask a question of another.  Mind you, knowing the nature of politicians on a platform and of the public in a large meeting, it is not an easy job he does and despite being no Robin Day, he does it well.

Did I watch the show when I got home?  Part of it.  I went up for a shower halfway through, leaving Jayne to point and laugh whenever my belly was in view.  As far as I was concerned it was a repeat!

Overall I thought that the people of this area came out of it all quite well.

I have been to a few TV recordings: Saturday Night Live and Friday Night Live with Ben Elton (although obviously they were not recordings, being live. The clue is in the title), some alternative comedy sketch show, Game For A Laugh and an extraordinarily dull and forgettable sitcom starring Patrick Duffy when I was in LA, and a rare edition of Most Wanted on MTV Europe when they had an audience in.

I never got to see the one I most wanted though – the Late Show with David Letterman.  The last time I was in New York the show was having a hiatus so it wasn;t even worth trying.

Even with the bad shows it is interesting to see the mechanics of it all, but I’m sure this one won’t be bad.  One unfortunate thing is that aviation is a topic of enormous local interest, what with Gatwick being on the doorstep, but the topic was done to death last week and is not that likely to crop up again this week.  I’m sure our locals will come up with something though.

The biggest question of all though – has Richard Symonds managed to wangle a ticket?  Now that would make for a real televisual treat.

I see the Lib Dem participant is their spokesman for children, schools and families.  I wonder if the county council’s shameful performance in child protection will crop up…

One worrying detail about it all though.  Apparently when you turn up there is coffee, tea and biscuits available.   Is it wise to pump an audience full of mild diuretics before putting them in a studio for two hours or more?  I suppose they know what they are doing by now, and it makes a change from the cheap wine the comedy shows used to ply you with.

If so, are you willing to let us have a copy for future UAF leaflets or the website? No payment (we are saving funds for campaigning) but full attribution if requested.

Unfortunately I was out of town at the time, so I missed it all. I don’t know how successful it was at increasing membership, but going by the photos in this week’s Crawley Observer it certainly raised awareness. I lost count of the number of UNITE badges and stickers you could see being worn.

At the time I had not heard his stuff and didn’t know how good he was, and it was bank holiday weekend when we had Ami staying just before having the grandchild so it would have been hard to go anyway but even so…

Must remember that life is not like digital TV – you can’t just call something up ‘on demand’ later if you missed it at the time.

I think the crawley Mela is a bit unusual. Traditionally a Mela is an Asian festival, and tends to feature mostly culture from the Indian sub-continent. Our one tends to spread its net a bit wider. The organisers made a point of saying that the Mela this year would include acts and stalls from everywhere.

This was bit confusing, as I can remember an African band last year, as well as an African drum workshop and a calypso singer, and the ubiquitous Irish dancing.

Croydon have a different approach: they have a more traditional Mela on the Sunday and a World Party on the Saturday. That seems to work, but I like the idea of mixing it all up like we do.

Locally the event gets a lot of support from all sorts of organisations. Obviously the borough council plays a large part, BBC Southern Counties always have a large presence and both the local newspapers are there in force. Various other organisations and charities have stalls there, either as a fund-raising activity or to publicise their services.

Jayne and I went along after our interviews, and I have to admit that I thought it was all a little flat compared to previous years. There did not seem to be as many punters there, and there seemed to be less choice in the merchandise in the stalls. I didn’t see the African stalls selling clothes and musical instruments for example, although the range of foods available was as wide as ever – with the notable absence of the Malaysian satay stall from two years ago which I really missed last year.

We were not there all day but even so, in previous years you could not turn a corner without bumping into one of the borough councillors, who used to turn out in force to support the event. This time the only ones I saw were the Mayor and her husband who were there in an official capacity, and the new leader of the council. Its not a major consideration for the general public but I think it shows a level of support for the organisers when most of the councillors turn out.

I am coming to the conclusion that the Hawth is not the best venue for this type of event, either in terms of size or layout. Because it is a fairly small site everything is crammed together closely, with no open spaces to talk of. If you want to lay out a blanket away from the crowds and just chill there is not really anywhere to go, and having the car park within the grounds means that you always have to keep one eye out for cars.

I can see the benefits for the organisers – having the theatre there means that there is no need to bring in portable toilets (and it means that the toilet quality is a lot better than at most festivals). The same applies to the theatre bar – no need for a beer tent. It didn’t apply this year, but the theatre also provides some shelter if the heavens open. But having said that, I think the current venue is a bit claustrophobic for a festival. There is certainly no room to grow.

I just can’t help thinking that it would all be a lot better in Tilgate Park, Southgate Playing fields, Goffs Park or Broadfield Park, although I’m sure we would all miss the parking chaos at the Hawth.