Abstract
Ray Campbell co-founded Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s first alternative cabaret club, Cabaret A Go Go, in 1987, with Martine D’Ellard, Clive Lyttle and Sebastian Jansen. Calling themselves the Fun Committee, they organised alternative cabaret shows at the Broken Doll pub and the Live Theatre on Newcastle’s Quayside during the tail-end of the 1980s. This chapter tells the story of Cabaret A Go Go through the lens of its promotional art. Initially inspired by John Heartfield’s photomontages, the posters gradually reflected the cultural capital of the individual members of the collective and were a vital part of the show. Cabaret A Go Go also launched Campbell’s career as a stand-up comedian; he was the club’s resident compère until he left to work on the London circuit in 1990.
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Notes
- 1.
Now Northumbria University.
- 2.
As a group, we were inspired by Dada and its possibilities. We planned to have Dada nights, but these never materialised. We thought of Hugo Ball as our ‘patron saint’.
- 3.
Toulouse-Lautrec’s contemporaries mocked his posters.
- 4.
A popular music venue located near the Quayside.
- 5.
An anagram of ‘Clive’.
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Campbell, R. (2022). The Story of Cabaret A Go Go. In: Double, O., Lockyer, S. (eds) Alternative Comedy Now and Then. Palgrave Studies in Comedy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97351-3_5
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