Captain Loveguns and the Tale Telling Dead Men, Evil Scarecrow, Valentone Acoustic.

Lev 2 Esquires Bedford. 27th December 2008.

With all the turkey and pud seen off for another year, the crackers are pulled and groaned at. As for the television schedules? Oh I wish TV had a knob so you could turn up the intelligence, the one marked brightness doesn't seem to work! Well thankfully, a popular destination for many people at this time of year is the local pantomime. Here at Esquires, and following on from their summer production, CAPTAIN LOVEGUNS AND THE TALE TELLING DEAD MEN are back for a seasonal show entitled The Captain's Christmas Carol. All the cast return as previous. With, I'm sure, many many apologies to Mr Charles Dickens, the scene was set for another swashbuckling hour. With level 2 once again transformed theatrically, plus all characters and many of the audience adopting the pirate theme, the atmosphere was superb.

A disgruntled Captain Horatio Loveguns tells his motley crew that on Christmas day they will all be hard at work searching for gold. The mates are not happy with their leaders' Scrooge-like tendencies and have three ways of persuading him that Christmas is special. The theme of ‘Gold’ is a chance for the quartet to indulge in a little over the top Spandau Ballet covering! Complete with plenty of "La, la, la, la's"! An old friend named Coconut Bob then warns the captain of his very selfish ways. Why, it has to be none other than the ghost of Bob Marley! Cue ‘Three Spirits Comin'.

With so many ad libs and double entendres, even Woolworths gets a bit of a rib-tickling. The first ghost is the Captain's old teacher. He is Christmas past. The present is much more awakening as he sees his crew partying with all the local wenches. The band then perform ‘We Don't Need Him Anymore’. Everything is now taking it's effect on Loveguns as the third and most hideous spirit arrives to warn him of his impending fate unless he changes his ways. ‘The Ghost Ship’ is decision time for him. At it's conclusion, he decides to give his crew a Christmas holiday. To loud cheering, this is when the level 2 stage gets very messy as piles of fake snow are dropped from above (I pity the poor cleaners!). The song that develops is a play on a cover of Deep Purple's not so famous ‘Snow on the Water’! It's been a richly amusing show courtesy of Matt and Danny (of HeKz), plus Rob and Fergus, who prove once again that ‘Its a long way to the top (If you wanna pluck the gold)’!

Adopting the overall sense of fun emanating from tonight, our support band EVIL SCARECROW fit the bill perfectly. This Nottingham five piece must have spent hours on their make up as they adopt their zombies from hell persona. Led by a gruesome vocalist named Dr Hell, they parody all things 'Maidenish' with more than a touch of death metal thrown in. Arriving with good pedigree, they played last summer's Bloodstock festival. Eerie tinkling keyboards are provided by the delightful Princess Luxury, whilst Bongo is the crazed drummer. Lyrically, their tongue in cheek humour is at the fore. ‘66 Minutes of 6’ is enhanced by audience participation. ‘Vampyre's Trousers’ sees Dr Hell's famous four note solo! Hear the crowd roar their approval. They then proceed to play the most metal track ever, which for those of you who don't know is ‘Theme from Thundercats’. The dark and gory ‘Helldog’ is also good, and ends with a rabies laden "Woof!". To close, Evil Scarecrow perform ‘Robotron’, which sees the band play like robots. The guitarist does manage to escape for a short while to play from the floor. In the context of the evening this band were a real treat.

John and Don from VALENTONE opened to play a short set of acoustic songs. For what was to follow, the youngsters were to be the only sane people on the stage!