From Soho to a Good Deal.
March 18, 2013
Quaintish seafront shops. Closed, of course. But it was Sunday.
This weekend we thought we'd leave the glorious hustle and bustle of Soho and London and celebrate Mickey's 40th Birthday with a trip to the coast. Mickey works on the National Theatre's production of Warhorse at the New London Theatre in Drury Lane, so he's always in town. Annie (who finished The MouseTrap last year, but lives in Sussex) used her legendary planning powers and arranged for the gang to spend the night in Deal in Kent. Where? Yep, Deal. And it's a little gem. Charles Hawtrey of 'Carry On' film fame lived there, and apart from Marc getting the usual "It's you off Eastenders isn't it!" treatment from a couple of 'youffs' in the train station, it was a very pleasant, if somewhat wet and windy little town.We stopped at the Royal Hotel on Beach Street, which is, yes, by the beach. It's run by Shepherd Neame, a good old English Brewery, and Danny, the manager, was a delight.
The town pier isn't the prettiest we've seen, but it used to be a working pier, so that's okay, and there is a coffee shop at the end. We spent most of the afternoon in a cosy little pub on the front and me and a few hardy souls stopped in the boozer to watch the England Rugby team being vaguely embarrassed - I think the word is routed - by Wales, in the final game of the 6 Nations. Then to the hotel for dinner, a late night, and Sunday lunch in a pub called The Bohemian. Well, we had to go there really, didn't we. We were rewarded by various delights including a regular who had a pet pig called Rodney. Rodney Trotter, obviously. Oh, we did laugh!
Hotel Room. Very nice. And almost bigger than my flat!
Danny, Managing Things.
I'm not sure if Deal is known for famous writers, but maybe you can let me know through our comments bar at the bottom of this page.
Rodney. Rodney Trotter.
We ended on on Sunday afternoon in Islington, via Kings Cross at a rather groovy little pub called A Hundred Crows Rising, which has a great little room upstairs and must have one of the weirdest names I've come across in a long time. Have you got any weird pub names?
Monday we slept. A lot. Happy Birthday Mikey.
Posted by Simon Plant. Posted In : Nick Hennegan
Hello. I'm Nick Hennegan and I started the London Literary Pub Crawl. Most of the blogs on here will be by me. I've always written but my first theatrical success was an adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Henry V' (www.HenryVPlay.com) I founded Maverick Theatre in 1994. (www.MaverickTheatreCompany.com) This pub crawl is really more a promenade theatre performance than a tour and I'm running it with a bunch of enthusiastic local actors and writers. I love sharing my passion for the area and the artists. I also present a weekly radio show, 'Literary London' on Resonance 104.4fm - London's Arts Station and a podcast on our site.
If you haven't visited us in London yet, I hope you'll come soon. Have a look at my new site, www.BohemianBritain.com. And feel free to leave comments or email me at nick @ LondonLiteraryPubCrawl.com - I reply to them all and I love to hear from you.