#bob flag

In recent blogs, I chatted with Kim Wells, founder of the seminal Earth Exchange Cabaret in the 1980s. Here he mentions some of the early eccentric acts who appeared at Earth Exchange and laments the way such acts – along with Variety in general – have been squeezed out by the overwhelming dominance of straight stand-up acts… Like a lot of alternative comedy venues in the early 1980s, Earth…

Yesterday’s blog was a conversation (not really an interview) with Kim Wells, founder of the legendary Earth Exchange cabaret/comedy club, which ran in London 1980-1989. He was also a performer… Now read on… JOHN: You were saying you did a mind-reading act with Bob Flag. How did that come about? KIM: Well, it came partly from my father. My father was quite a good amateur magician. He used to do…

The legendary Earth Exchange and founder Kim Wells (Photo by Maha Roberts) Yesterday, I received a message from Kim Wells, triggered by a blog I posted about mad inventor John  Ward. Apparently, there is a Chinese saying “No coincidence, no story”. Who knows if that’s true? But the Chinese have sayings for everything. They have had a long time to work them out. Kim Wells established and ran the…

The Pope died this morning. A few hours after that, I received a message from performer Tony Green.Over the years, he has occasionally popped up in this blog. Tony Green, not the Pope. Tony’s performing alter ego is Sir Gideon Vein.  This was the message: How are you, John? I am not too well myself.  This is perhaps an understatement on my part.  I am in the Cancer Ward of an Edinburgh Hospital…

Cold Light of Day (1990) #Review

Synopsis- February, 1983. Detectives are called to a residential address in the London suburbs following reports that the drains have been clogged by human remains. Director- Fhiona-Louise Cast- Bob Flag, Claire King, Keith Hamilton Cobb Genre- Horror | Crime | Drama Released- 1989 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. Cold Light of Day, directed by Fhiona-Louise, delves into the dark and disturbing…

Last week, I blogged about the death of multi-talented British eccentric Bob Flag. In the summer of 1981, he was performing on stage off-West End in London as part of The Mad Show.  Another of the Mad Show performers was Anthony Irvine, who later developed an ice-block-melting performance art routine as The Iceman and who, more recently, became a painty-painty real artist as AIM. The Iceman…

In the summer of 1981, Malcolm Hardee and The Greatest Show on Legs were appearing in London slightly off-West End (at the Bloomsbury Theatre) in The Mad Show – a collection of kinda eccentric speciality acts.  These included Anthony Irvine (later called The Iceman) who, at that point in his career, did an act where he crawled across the stage wearing a yellow souwester cape and Wellington…