The Madness Of Margate

I tooled over to the Arsonists' Playground on Friday to attend one of the Theatre Royal's excellent monthly comedy nights. My hilarious old chum Matt Welcome was on the bill, fresh from the London circuit. And headlining was Harvey Oliver, fresh from the, er, caravan park circuit.

I don't think he'll mind me saying that, as it's part of his highly entertaining act. And he did cope in spectacular and side-splitting fashion with a drunken female heckler from hell. All the acts were very complimentary about the Theatre Royal's refit, courtesy of the Uranians, with only one of them pausing to ponder why the boxes had been boarded up in the process.

Not that it's all titters in Margate. Oh no. Far from it. A late night walk down the lower High Street after the show had me wishing I'd forked out the 100 smackers to be accompanied by Fat Kev, my security adviser. It seems one of the many boarded up shops has been transformed into a loosh nightery appropriately dubbed The Madhouse. Out of this fine example of regenerated cafe culture stumbled a gaggle of rowdy youths who promptly spewed up whatever it was they had consumed across the newly widened pavements. Meanwhile the establishment's bouncers, who had presumably not bothered to remove these, er, gentlemen before they reached such a state of ill-humour, looked aimlessly on.

And what's transpiring over on the pier? In the gloom it looked as if all the jolly paintwork (see picture above) which we apparently paid an artist chappy £56,000 for only last year, is being obliterated by the Pineapple Properties development, which we're subsidising to the tune of lord knows! Kuh, anyone would think Thanet was made of money!