Blog: Doctor Doom in Bedford

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I arrived in Bedford on Friday night and had the same first impressions that I have had every other time I've been: it's a lot like Peterborough, but a bit nicer. I reckon this has been set up by town planners DELIBERATELY because as you walk from the railway station to town you go past an Italian church, a Polish club and a West Indian social club then down a street where they have surely EMPLOYED small children of Indian heritage to lark around in the street. All that was missing was The Society Of People Who Moved Here From Essex and you have got pretty much the whole history of Peterborough before you even get to WH Smiths!

Actually, that's not true, it's also missing a walloping great big shopping centre in the middle that feels like everything leads to it, which means there's lots of Actual Streets to wend along, and this I did as I head to The Quarry Theatre where I was due to play. I knew it was part of a SCHOOL so I was expecting basically a small school hall, possibly with someone selling cans of drink from a HATCH. I was thus ASTONISHED when I got there to find a DEAD SWANKY theatre with a LUXURIOUS bar area looking out onto a DELIGHTFUL garden containing a stand for Bedford Radio, a music stage, a pizza stand and LOADS of people relaxing in a sophisticated style. It was RUDDY GORGEOUS!

I checked in and asked, slightly nervously, whether anyone was coming - for the other shows I've had access to live ticket sales, which I have checked MANY times a day, but here I had no idea and so was DELIGHTED to be told that 24 tickets had been sold - a record for ticket sales so far! I then went and put my gear in the dressing room - dressing room THREE in fact, implying that there are several - and lurked around a bit until Mr J Kell turned up. I haven't seen John for AGES so we had a good old natter, went to chat to his colleagues at the aforesaid Bedford Radio (who were broadcasting my interview with them from the other day AT THAT VERY MOMENT!), and then had a PIZZA. It was nice!

Shortly after that Mr S Bali arrived too - I was at infants, juniors and senior school with Sanjiv, almost always in the same class, and as people who have SEEN Data And Doctor Domo will be aware, he does APPEAR within it, so I'd invited him along to check that that particular bit was all right with him. I've bumped into Sanj maybe once in twice in the past few decades but as soon as he rolled up we were discussing COMICS i.e. exactly as we had done as TINY CHILDREN. I also made sure to get a PICTURE with him there and then, in case he left in FURY at the end!



Everything was running LATE as a show earlier in the day had overrun, so when I got into the theatre things were a little panicky, but I was CALM. I remained calm when I dived into my bag to get the PEDAL that I used to move the slides along while I'm playing guitar and found that it was NOT THERE. "Oh yes," I thought, "I left it on the shelf at home after trying out a new bit yesterday." This pedal is HUGELY important because, as the more anatomically literate amongst you will know, people with only TWO (2) hands do not have SUFFICIENT hands to play guitar AND press buttons on a laptop to move slides along.

Weirdly I REMAINED entirely calm as I wondered what to do. I considered trying to do an edit to cut out the bits I'd need to move along, but then thought "It'll be fine, I'll work it out as I go along." I think this is due to my decision to VEER OFF from the plan to make the whole show SUPER SLICK and SCRIPTED and return to the original thought of doing it like a presentation or GIG where there's an obvious ROUTE through it all, but I can mess about along the way. I mean, this was always going to happen, but I have not put up too much of a fight!

It's also quite remarkable that I remained calm in the face of the VENUE, which was BIG! Look!



Everything was GROWN-UP and PROPER which meant that I wasn't sure what to do, and hid backstage for what felt like AGES before waving at one of the lovely staff members, managing to mime "Is it OK for me to come on now?" quite effectively before getting the all clear. I went on and FESSED UP right from the start, pointing out that this would therefore be a UNIQUE and VERY SPECIAL performance - and it pretty much was! It turns out that you CAN do a lot of the songs with only the first slide showing, and in most cases I was able to go through what we'd missed fairly quickly when the song was done. There were a few occasions where I HAD to flick through, so did a couple of songs STRUMMING a chord then leaning forward to click to the next slide - after the show one person offered me some Constructive Criticism that the songs needed to be VARIED a bit, and I'm going with the excuse that a lot of them DID sound the same this time because of that. Also, obviously, they DO use the same chords for the most part, but I'm sticking with that excuse!

The BEST bit was after Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars, which (SPOILERS) mentions Sanjiv and me disagreeing over whether it was any good or not, when I was able to offer him a RIGHT TO REPLY! As it turns out I did NOT need to have worried about getting the photograph taken and he was FINE with the whole thing - PHEW!

Once it was all done I came back out to thank everyone for bearing with me, and people looked a bit ALARMED, like they needed to start clapping again - "It's not an encore," I said, "just saying thanks!" for LO! I forgot we were in an Actual Theatre, where you're meant to hide in a dressing room, not galumph back on straight away!

There was time for some chat with lovely audience members, then John, Sanjiv and I headed to a nearby PUB before I had to fly off again to get my last sensible train. It had been a brilliant night, full of ADVENTURE - doing gigs is GRATE!

posted 29/7/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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