Roger McGough and Andy Roberts

Roger McGough and Andy Roberts, originally uploaded by fred pipes.

Despite being cream crackered from a 21-mile bike ride round Chichester harbour with the Clarion (no, I didn't cycle all the way there, we got the train!), I managed to hobble (cycle) down to the Komedia's new back entrance to see Roger McGough and Andy Roberts. Liverpool poet Roger McGough was consistently laugh-out-loud entertaining, flitting from chair to chair, so as not to confuse the audience, with readings from his poems old and new, and extracts from his autobiography Said and Done. Brighton resident Andy Roberts took time off from the Bonzos tour, to accompany Roger and perform some of his own songs. The second of two sets started with Andy in a Chinese robe accompanying Roger's hilarious extracts from the diary of the friend of Confucious who invented hiakus (didn't catch his name, but he had a young wife!). I also bumped into my old chum and neighbour Curtis Tappenden and his daughter Tilly who were sketching throughout!

Attending a gig like this can work out expensive, what with the entrance fee of £12.50, a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown at £3.50 each (Komedia kindly supply some decent bottled beers to augment the young-persons' continental lager on tap), a paperback copy of Roger's book for 9 quid (1p above the rrp - Amazon price £7.19 for those thinking ahead) and a copy of the GRIMMS CD Sleepers (for the bonus tracks) for another £12 (Andy was the R and Roger one of the Ms in this short-lived band). But it was signed by Andy (but not by Roger); I'd earlier got my 1967 Penguin Modern Poets 10: The Mersey Sound (already signed by Brian Patten, but unfortunately not by Adrian Henri RIP, which originally cost 3/6d) and After the Merrymaking (1971, 60p) signed by Roger.