Address | 57 Old London Rd Kingston upon Thames England |
---|---|
Coordinates | 51°24′37″N0°17′58″W / 51.4103°N 0.2995°W |
Public transit | Kingston railway station – Travel Card Zone 6 |
Type | Music hall |
Production | rock and roll, punk, metal, ska, alternative, rockabilly, electro, comedy and cabaret performances |
Construction | |
Built | 1891 |
Years active | 1930 – present |
Website | |
TheFightingCocks.co.uk |
The Fighting Cocks is a music venue built prior to 1890 [1] [2] active since the 1930s and located in Kingston upon Thames, the administrative centre of the Royal Borough of Kingston, southwest London, England. [3] [4] [5] [6] It specializes in rock and roll, punk, metal, folk, [7] ska, alternative, rockabilly, electro, comedy, and cabaret performances. [8] It was conspicuous for hosting touring jazz acts [9] in the late 1930s and in the 1940s. [10] [11] [12] It is now a standard on the London live circuit. [13] It was a popular watering hole, and host to many jam sessions including such artists as Eric Clapton, Shirley Collins, [14] Frank Turner, Gallows, The Stupids, [15] June Tabor [16] and The Rolling Stones. Since 1992, it is also a live-audience training platform and term assessments venue for Kingston University's drama and music students. [17] [18] [19]
Unsigned, underground, as well as established artists have been invited to perform. The last management of the Cocks opened its doors in 2000. The Fighting Cocks is cooperating with Banquet Records promoters based a few minutes walk away in the town centre, formerly part of the Beggars Banquet Records retail chain. Banquet Records is also home to Gravity DIP music management. [20]
The music venue has a long history of comedy performers especially since it has transformed into the award-winning Outside the Box comedy night on Mondays. [21] Comedians who have performed there include: [22]
Comedy couple Lucy Beaumont and Jon Richardson first met one another at the Kingston venue's weekly comedy night. [26]
Past performers include:
The Fighting Cocks was featured as a filming location in Season 2 of Disney's Loki television series. In it, Hiddleston’s Loki catches up with his old star-crossed lover Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) to discuss a return to the Time Variance Agency. Regulars might be perplexed by the décor: the pub is actually standing in for a watering hole in 1980s Oklahoma – though the leopard print and pool table will ring some definite bells. The pub has put a plaque down to mark where the God of Mischief once propped up the bar and sipped a bourbon. [28]
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has generic name (help)Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention.
Richard Keith Herring is an English stand-up comedian and writer whose early work includes the comedy double act Lee and Herring. He is described by The British Theatre Guide as "one of the leading hidden masters of modern British comedy".
The Glee Club is a chain of independent live stand-up comedy and live music venues in the UK. The first Glee Club was opened by Mark Tughan in Birmingham's Chinese Quarter in 1994, the first dedicated comedy club to open in the United Kingdom outside London.
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston. The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers – the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty.
Dara Ó Briain is an Irish comedian and television presenter based in the United Kingdom. He is noted for performing stand-up comedy shows all over the world and for hosting topical panel shows such as Mock the Week, The Panel, and The Apprentice: You're Fired!. In 2012, he was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for Best Entertainment Performance for his work on Mock the Week.
Mock the Week is a British topical satirical celebrity panel show, created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson. It was produced by Angst Productions for BBC Two, and was broadcast from 5 June 2005 to 4 November 2022. The programme was presented by Dara Ó Briain and featured regular appearances by comedian Hugh Dennis, as well as guest appearances by a variety of stand-up comedians, some of whom had regular appearances in several series.
Andrew John Parsons is an English comedian and writer. He regularly appeared on Mock the Week from Series 3 to Series 14. With comedy partner Henry Naylor, he has written and presented nine series of Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections for BBC Radio 2.
Andrew Lawrence is an English comedian who works in stand-up comedy, radio and television.
Russell Joseph Howard is an English comedian, television presenter, radio presenter, and actor. He was known for his television show Russell Howard's Good News and his appearances on the topical panel TV show Mock the Week, and is currently doing The Russell Howard Hour. He won "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards and was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award for his 2006 Aberdeen Festival Fringe show. Howard has cited comedians Lee Evans, Richard Pryor, and Frank Skinner as influences.
Stephen Kehinde Amos is a British stand-up comedian and television personality. A regular on the international comedy circuit, he is known for including his audience members during his shows. He began his career as a compere at the Big Fish comedy clubs in South London, and has been nominated for Chortle's Best Compere Award three times in 2004, 2007 and 2008.
Jon Joel Richardson is an English comedian. He is known for his appearances on 8 Out of 10 Cats and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and his work as co-host with Russell Howard on BBC Radio 6 Music. He presented Jon Richardson: Ultimate Worrier, and also features with his wife Lucy Beaumont in the TV show Meet the Richardsons.
Matthew James "Maff" Brown is a British comedian and MC. He is known for his mischievous style of joke-telling. Brown is the founder of the award-winning Outside The Box Comedy Club.
Thomas William Hiddleston is an English actor. He gained international fame portraying Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), starting with Thor in 2011 and most recently headlining the Disney+ series Loki since 2021.
The Tabard Theatre is a small 96-seat theatre in Chiswick in the London Borough of Hounslow. Close to Turnham Green Underground station, it is situated above the Tabard public house on Bath Road. The Tabard Theatre was licensed and opened for theatre use in 1985. It was renamed as the Chiswick Playhouse in 2019 which closed in March 2022. It is reopening as the Tabard in September 2022.
Outside the Box is a comedy club located in the backroom of The Fighting Cocks pub in Kingston-upon-Thames. It was opened in November 2006 by comedian Maff Brown.
The Ram Folk Club was a folk club in the borough of Elmbridge in suburban north Surrey, one of only a few folk clubs in the Home Counties close to London. Established in October 1983, it operated on Friday evenings and featured music by folk and acoustic artists and bands. It was run by a small group of regular musicians and fans and was not for profit. The evening usually consisted of a main 'guest' preceded by several floor spots. In 2007, the Club received the BBC Radio 2 Folk Club of the Year award. In March 2021, having not operated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it announced its permanent closure.
Frisky & Mannish is a British musical comedy double act, created and performed by singer Laura Corcoran and pianist-singer Matthew Floyd Jones. Known for their pop music parodies, the duo have toured the fringe festival and comedy festival circuits in the United Kingdom and Australia, and appeared on a number of British television and radio programmes. The act's name derives from two incidental characters mentioned in one couplet of Byron's Don Juan: "Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, / Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish"
Banquet Records is a record shop in Kingston upon Thames, Greater London. Formerly part of the Beggars Banquet Records retail chain, it became fully independent in 2002. It stocks a broad range of music on both vinyl and CD. The establishment is also home to Gravity DIP music management, as well as the Banquet Records record label.
Angel Comedy is a free comedy night that runs seven nights a week at two pub venues in London, England; above the Camden Head and in the Bill Murray. The club was founded by Barry Ferns, Sarah Pearce, Rachael Warnes and Dec Munro, and describes itself as "making comedy more accessible for audiences and comedians".
Dara O Briain's Go 8 Bit is a British comedy panel game show, hosted by comedian Dara Ó Briain, co-starring video game journalist Ellie Gibson, and premiered on Dave on 5 September 2016. The show's format is themed around two teams – English comedians Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon as team captains, along with a guest member for each team – competing in a series of rounds against each other for points through various video games. Games featured in the programme ranged from past classic, modern releases and indie games, as well as a specially designed round themed on a particular game. The winner of each episode is the team to secure the most points after five rounds, with the number of points determined by an audience vote.