Copshaw Common Riding does “Stars in their Eyes”

Copshaw Common Riding held an evening of “Stars in their Eyes” on the 6th November where all the proceeds raised were donated to the British Legion and what a night it turned out to be!!

We thought it was going to be a popular night, we didn’t realise just how popular, the queue to get in snaked all the way back to “Isobel’s shop on the corner” if Isobel had opened she could really have boosted her takings!! Word had obviously got out that there was going to be some exceptional performers taking part and it seemed that nobody wanted to miss out, and by all accounts nobody came away disappointed, it’s been said before and it’ll be said again that nobody does nights like this as well as we do in Copshaw, it’s a community thing and you’ve either got that or you haven’t, if we could bottle it and sell it, we would be the richest village around!!

Believe me there were some very nervous acts back stage, most so far out of their comfort zones, they didn’t know what to do with themselves, so of course we had another drink!! It’s fair to say that drink plays a large part in some of our Common Riding adventures, I mean you couldn’t come up with some of the things we do, without being either slightly daft or slightly drunk, I never thought I would be privileged enough to share a drink with Laurel and Hardy (especially as they are both deed!!) but it happened! although Stan does seem to have put a bit of weight on!!

What can I say about the performers, they were all excellent, and where some lacked in vocals they made up for in actions!! If any of the ladies in the audience want their underwear back, can they see Craig and he will sort them out!!

First up was John Travolta or Michael the Legion barman, with a fine rendition of “Sandy” if we had more time we might have managed to find an Olivia Newton John for him (or maybe not !), then came the Blues Brothers, or the Blues Uncle and Nephew!!  or probably more apt would be the Booze Brothers! good job Ryan knew what he was doing!.  Cliff Richard was next up, with Jarvis looking more like Martina Navratilova than Cliff, but the voice is still there even after all those years away from Chianti.

Probably the most nervous of the acts back stage was Shaun, who is well known for not having the purest of singing voices, but what a performance as wild man Axel Rose, ably assisted by his equally wild man guitarist “Slash” it was unfortunate that when Axel jumped off the stage, the front of the audience they could tell if he was a true Scotsman or not!! well luckily for them he had decided to cover the Crown Jewels for the night!!. Then followed Stan and Ollie, on the trail of the Lonesome Pine, some of the audience could probably remember when they were big in the 1920’s but surely they couldn’t have been as funny then as they were in the Legion, top stuff from Neil and Butch.

It wouldn’t have been right for a Cuthbert not to do Rolf Harris, and my god Vicky didn’t let us down, it was a little unsettling to see the wife with a beard!! but the kangaroo’s were well, and truly tied down, she did have the look of Rolf down to a tee, (a much younger Rolf obviously). Then the act the ladies had all been waiting for came on stage next, and boy Treats didn’t half give them a Treat as Rod Stewart, complete with his leopard skin suit and flowing locks, he was the spitting image (of Lily Savage!!) Maggie May! well she would have done that night!!

Now you go along to the Legion, take your partner, your old mam’s there, expecting to have a great night out, the last thing you expect to see, is yourself, up there on the stage in all your glory and with a rubber partner!!, yet that is just what happened to Alan Atkinson, who is well know for his ability to belt out a tune at any given opportunity, Martin Rick was uncanny as he gave a rendition of one of Alan’s party pieces, we have been privileged to hear Alan’s own version a few times and Martin had it spot on, and of course Alan took it all in good fun as we knew he would.

Now when Diane said she was going to do Lyn Anderson, we all thought, eh!! Lyn cant sing, turned out it wasn’t that Lyn, it was the one who sang Rose Garden!! Thank god! now Diane did look a bit like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, or was it Bo Peep, but boy she sang it well, and played a big part in other ways as well.

Now lets face it, when we started to organise this, you would think, oh I want to be someone quite cool, or good looking or popular, so what does Chink come up with? An ugly ginger minger, like Mick Hucknall!! so to make Mick look good he would have to get it right, and it has to be said, that the boy did good, vocally the performance of the night (sorry Shaun)

The last, but certainly not the least act of the night, were those gay icons the Village people, Philip, Peter, Barry and Jim, all ex-Tubs, all incredibly camp!! YMCA!!, honest you wouldn’t want to spend a night in a Youth Hostel with that lot!! Brilliant!!

It was one of the best nights we have been involved in (probably the best yet!) and there are a lot of people that worked hard to make it such a good night and to hopefully raise a good sum for the Legion, the video clips to introduce the acts were all produced by Chink, in fact the whole night was his idea, and he put in a hell of a lot of work to make it happen, Craig and Scott both made sure it all ran smoothly, and our compere for the night Matthew Kelly, was Greg at his finest, merciless he is!, don’t get in his line of sight if you are ever at anything he is compeering!!

As I said all the proceeds from the door and the raffle were donated to the Legion, and hopefully similar nights to this can help them survive, but I imagine it’s not going to be easy, there are a few problems there, which hopefully can be sorted out, because there isn’t a better room for atmosphere on a good night like there is in the Legion.

Coming next for the Common Riding, will be the New Years Honours doo, and it’s been rumoured that we are going to do a Panto next year, can you imagine the cast of characters we might come up with for a Panto!!

Gary.