Ben Walters was cabaret editor of Time Out before leaving to set up his highly respected cabaret website Not Television, and bringing one of London’s most exciting new quarterly cabaret nights into being: Come With Me If You Want To Live. Ahead of its second instalment at the Chelsea Theatre on Friday 11th we caught up with Mr Walters to speak about what makes a good show, and what to expect from his next event.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I think of myself as being quite lucky in that I get to spend a lot of my time doing things that I think are really interesting and worthwhile and fun, and I somehow just about cobble together a living out of doing them!
How did you get into the cabaret scene originally?
I’ve been a journalist for my whole career, and started going just for fun to places like Duckie and got more into the slightly more leftfield stuff. Then I lived in New York for a couple of years and I really fell in love with it. I love film and do a lot about film but live performance is just so much more alive.
What made you set up Come With Me If You Want to Live?
When I was doing the cabaret section at Time Out the lovely people at the Chelsea Theatre were talking about being more interested in having a bit more cabaret, and asked if it was something that I was interested in being involved in. And so that was a bit of a step in kind of going from covering things to producing them. In a way, it’s a case of putting your money where your mouth is, which I think is no bad thing for a critic.
It’s said that in times of austerity people turn to entertainment for relief. Do you see this happening with London at all?
Yes, to an extent I think it is. I think the arts and entertainment industry has actually, despite the hostile political climate, been doing very well, which I don’t think is a surprise, because as you say it is accepted at times like this for very good reasons. Partly because of the fact that art and culture are pretty much the sound of society talking to itself. And I think there’s a social element. For a good cabaret, communication is a part of the show and you come away from a show like that feeling like you’ve actually been with people in a way that might just make things a little bit better than a little bit worse.
And the new show is on Friday 11th, what acts have you got involved and what can we expect?
We’ve got the World’s End Needleworkers who do so much brilliant community work. We’ll be getting to see people coming to that class, modelling their own new couture designs and I’ll be having a little word with Maria Fidalgo who runs the class. She’s 80, she’s lived all over the world, she’s trained in couture, Lily Allen has her on speed dial to advise her on clothes. We’ve got the LipSinkers who are so OTT and bonkers but really tight, crazy and clever and really work, with a beautiful chemistry together. The second 80-year-old woman on the bill – which is not a line that you hear very often – is Lynne Ruth Miller who is just brilliant. She’s only been performing for the last ten years but is just going from strength to strength. Miss Behave, who is also brilliant and has done all these crazy sideshow things, she throws swords and things like that. But she also does a new gameshow, which uses people’s mobile phones. It takes some of the things that performers sometime see as the enemy of audience engagement and actually kind of judo throws that, so that it works for you. Then there’s Barb Jungr, who is just stunning and I think one of the most powerful performers anywhere around the world with the most beautiful voice and the most incredibly powerful connection with the words that she’s singing, and with the audience in the room.
• Come With Me If You Want To Live is at Chelsea Theatre (Worlds End Place, SW10 0DR) on Friday 11th July at 8pm. Tickets: 020 7352 1967 and www.chelseatheatre.org.uk
