Life after the People's Cabaret

In some ways life has been calmer for me since leaving The People Show, but less exciting in many ways. I will never forget co-founder Mark Long, naked, with his hands tied behind his back, pursuing a male German audience member down the freezing, snow-covered street of a town in the Ruhr valley.

Our performance had not gone down well and the young man had dropped a lit cigarette onto Mark's naked body on leaving the venue. This was my first tour with the group and I was hooked. Earlier in the evening, we had asked the audience to join us in singing 'God Save The Queen' and a fight had broken out between us and them and vast quantities of yoghurt had been thrown. Not by them, by us.

Another time, in the former Yugoslavia, we translated the lighting cues into Croat via Mexican-Italian, and after ten minutes the stage was plunged into darkness. I crawled into the lighting box to discover the entire group had had the same idea and we all tried to convince the technician to put the lights back on. He refused, indicating his cue sheet on which the last cue said 'fade to black'.

Film-making has always seemed tame by comparison and one day I'd love to write a book about it all. In the meantime, I'll go and check out the Cabaret Show and I advise you to do the same. This is a unique group. It has never had a director, it has survived for over 30 years and Mark Long is an original. Forget all the West End bollocks, go and see Britain's most enduring, original theatre group.

People Show Cabaret, Tue 10-Sat 28 October, People Show Studios, Pollard Row, E2 (020 7729 1841)

People Show Cabaret