Catweazle

I have been meaning to go back to the Catweazle club for months and months and always something else has got in the way. This evening there was nothing except tiredness and I knew that if I didn't go I probably never would. There was a chance my good friend, the under-rated poet, Owen Collins, would be there and I was pleased he was, and performing.

I first went nearly 30 years ago, to the club's first home in Northgate Hall before it was converted from a homeless day-centre into a boutique hotel and, all this time on, the host is still Matt Sage. I'd forgotten what a very special evening he runs. No mike, so everyone listens, properly, and no-one chatters over their drink. Matt is lovely to every performer, from the under-rated performance poet to the thin-voiced keyboard player, the polemicist stuck in the politics of the 90s, the performer with a stammer who was given all the time and attention in the world to help us understand how stammering might feel, the self-identified Arab counting 10,000 children, the professional musician working magic with the mouth organ.

An absolutely kind, nurturing, engaging and entertaining evening.

I wasn't planning to take photos but this performer against the backdrop was irresistible.

I will be back - soon!