These are Paul L Martin’s favourite Battersea Barge memories. What are yours?

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Over the past year or two, some of the institutions that helped shape the London cabaret scene since the turn of the century have bitten the dust: companies like the Boom Boom Club and Eat Your Heart Out; residencies like the DE Experience at the RVT and the Wam Bam Club at the Café de Paris; total one-offs like The Pale Blue Door; venues like Volupté, the Brickhouse and the Old Vic Tunnels; and the departure from the London stage, for various reasons, of acts like Kiki Kaboom, Audacity Chutzpah, Laurie Hagen and Piff the Magic Dragon.

That’s not to say all these things are done and dusted – far from it, most of the performers and companies remain active in other guises – and of course change is good. But it’s always worth marking the end of a particularly special chapter in the cabaret story. And Paul L Martin’s work at the Battersea Barge was certainly that – truly one of the engines of the form’s revival in the capital and the boom that resulted. But as the Barge looks set to wind down cabaret performance, this week’s murder-mystery pastiche Dial M… for Death effectively marks the end of that era.

Along with Dusty Limits and Sarah-Louise Young, Martin was banging the drum for cabaret from the very start of the resurgent London scene, and the Barge was where much of the banging happened. It was the site of Frisky & Mannish’s debut performance among others and, as Limits put it this week, “a crucible of talent, a melting-pot of dreams, and a train-crash of everyone’s dignity”.

When former cocktail pianist Peter Lewis took over ownership of the Barge – a floating venue moored off the Vauxhall embankment with a bar and small stage – in 2001, Martin was looking for a new home for his drag and variety night, Trinity’s. It was, Martin believes, the first suggestion of cabaret on the Barge but Lewis was receptive and a partnership was born. “It had more than a touch of the Muppet Show theatre about it and that really turned me on,” Martin recalls. “I’m a sucker for velvet curtains and scalloped lights. And it’s like the best kept secret in London. Or the worst publicised.”

The partnership went on to include the monthly Cheese ’n’ Crackers talent show, the infamous annual Barge panto and innumerable one-offs under Martin’s Excess All Areas production company. That’s not to mention hundreds of other shows that Martin wasn’t involved in – many related to musical theatre, others featuring performers ranging from Ronnie Wood to Harry Hill – and Lewis’s own signature ivory-tinkling interludes.

Lewis sold the Barge to new owners on his retirement earlier this year. Now St James Developments, builders of the £600m luxury flat complex in whose shadow the venue sits, have announced they are denying the Barge use of the riverside walkway after 10.30pm, effectively putting the kibosh on most cabaret nights. (Thanks again, luxury flats!) After Dial M… and the final Cheese ’n’ Crackers at the venue on July 3, Martin is moving on. It remains to be seen whether much cabaret will remain at the Barge.

“I love it because it’s always been a little bit shoddy, a little bit falling apart,” Martin says. “But it became the place where you could cut your teeth and try out something dangerous or daft. There was a chance for young people and keen people to try something daring. That’s why I love Peter: he did it because he cared about it, not because it was going to sell another bottle of wine. I don’t think I’ll ever find somebody else to work with like him.”

At least Martin looks set to go out with a bang. Last year’s Murder on the Battersea Barge was a total hoot – a kind of summer whodunit variant on the successful panto formula of tongue-in-cheek, self-referential pissing about, good solid scriptwriting, excellent gags and bravura company performance. Dial M… takes aim at Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock and Noel Coward and features Martin (who also wrote it), Benjamin Louche, Tricity Vogue, Champagne Charlie, Jamie Anderson and newcomer Becky John. (Here’s a trailer featuring footage from last year – though honestly I’m not sure it does the show justice.)

Here, then, are Paul L Martin’s five most cherished memories of his time at the Barge. Feel free to chime in with yours in the comments below.

1. Cheese ’n’ Crackers 10th Anniversary Show
(March 2014)
“This March, we celebrated ten years of allowing clinically insane people seven minutes of stage time to do whatever they want and compete for a plate of cheese for the privilege. One of my stranger show concepts but one of the most successful, with more than 800 acts having taken part in the monthly event over the decade. For the tenth anniversary, ex-hosts of the show competed against each other for the ultimate Cheese Platter, including Sarah-Louise Young, Mister Meredith, Jamie Anderson and me. Sarah-Louise performed as her alter ego La Poule Plombée and, most deservedly, won by a landslide. Even my husband voted for her. I am in the process of filing for divorce…”

 

2. Fancy Chance as Prince in our annual pantomimes
(December 2010 to January 2014, on and off)
“It was 2010 and our long-time writer-director Dusty Limits was giving his Cinderella and the Glass Ceiling. I was not in the show this year but producing from afar whilst having a bash at being a ‘real’ pantomime dame in Bury St. Edmunds to family audiences (very boring, not doing that again. Did you know you’re not allowed to say ‘fuck’?!). I got back to London in time to see the January shows and Fancy’s infamous rendition of Kiss – I nearly lost a lung laughing. Fancy has carved a unique and much-loved place in every pantomime since, and we had to bring Prince back last December for Pilates in the Caribbean ’cos people wouldn’t shut up about it.”

3. Trinity’s
(Thursdays from 2001 to 2008)
“My first production at the Barge was a weekly cabaret called Trinity’s when I was still a drag act called Trinity Million. Dusty was the compere and we had a whole family of regular performers who sang songs, did sketches, stand-up, circus and vaudeville – all long before all those other buggers were running cabarets in London. Trinity’s was like The Muppet Show with humans: Dusty was Kermit, I was Miss Piggy and we had lots of special guests whose solos we’d ruin by dancing around in the background and doing under-rehearsed harmonies. Regular performers included Shazia Mirza and Euan Morton, before she took over the world of stand-up and he moved to NYC with Taboo and was nominated for a Tony award. My favourite memory is the time we lined up toasters along the front of the stage and made buttered toast for the whole audience whilst I sang Life by Des’ree on a loop…”

4. Battersea Barge Fifth Birthday Party and Cabaret
(2006)
“I performed as Trinity at this landmark event and sanf Fascinating Aida’s wonderful number, Lieder (‘Doesn’t matter if you sing out of tune as long as you’re German…’). Nobody told me Adele Anderson was coming to the show and would be watching ’til five minutes before curtain up! I used to watch Adele in FA when I was as young as 13 and she and Dillie have informed a lot of my work – I nicked their songs for 20 years. I met her afterwards and she asked me to teach her to do eye make-up like mine, so we arranged a tutorial the week after at my place which involved a lot of cake. We’ve been mates ever since.”

5. The first London Cabaret Awards
(February 2012)
“Hosted by my on-stage life partner Jamie Anderson, with performances from Mr B, The Gentleman Rhymer, Four Femmes on the Thames and Josephine Shaker, plus all the awards handed out, speeches given, bubbly wine quaffed… [Editor’s note from Ben: I was one of the judges] The awards have since become annual, moving venue every year, but like many of my hare-brained schemes, they began life at the barge, thanks to Peter Lewis and his belief in me. He has given countless promoters and performers just like me a chance on events that could have left him with an empty boat and no revenue for the night. I will never find anyone like Pete to work with again and cannot thank him enough for everything he’s done for me and Excess All Areas.”

Dial M… for Death runs from Sunday June 22 to Friday June 27.
Tickets are available at www.paullmartin.com, www.lastminute.com and via the Yplan app.
Read Paul L Martin’s goodbye to the Barge here.
And check out This Is Cabaret’s tribute here.