Tim Cornwell's diary: Sheppard turns gamekeeper in a bid to keep the stags out

Published on Wednesday 1 April 2009 20:39

IT'S just not funny: rowdy stag and hen nights have provoked moans in Prague, and a ban in Dublin's Temple Bar area in the past. But in possibly the most radical – or sensible – move yet, Scotland's longest running comedy clubs have now closed their doors to them as well.

The Stand Comedy Club says it will no longer accept bookings in its Edinburgh and Glasgow venues "from groups planning pre-nuptial excess". In a low blow, it says staff will recommend these groups of revellers go to rivals Jongleurs instead.

Director Tommy Sheppard, pictured, says soberly that he's acting to protect his "quality comedians" and annoyed customers from the antics of drunken groups.

"Opening the doors on a Saturday night to see a squad of guys in dresses resembling a very bad student rag event, or a gaggle of young women clothed in flashing horns and deely boppers and precious little else, would often make the hearts of staff and performers sink," Sheppard insists. "Now such sights will be a thing of the past."

Unless, of course, people partaking in hen and stag dos start sneaking into Stand performances unannounced and wearing 'normal' clothes. How Shepherd intends to rumble such groups planning "pre-nuptial excess" is anyone's guess.

The judgment of Paris

GALLIC indignation was in the air at the launch of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's new season in Glasgow. The orchestra rolled out a programme studded with star soloists and patted itself on the back for growing classical audiences, as it pampered music writers at its annual bash at the Hotel Du Vin. A new European tour will see music director Stphane Denve take the orchestra to prestigious venues across Europe, including his beloved Paris.

Denve was still bristling, however, over a Financial Times review of Parisian Portrait, the second of two springtime concerts he devoted to the music of the city where he won a unanimous first prize at the Paris Conservatoire.

It was a four-star review, full of praise for Denve, but it referred to the work of several new French composers he championed as "a succession of derivative divertissements".

It suggested Denve talked too much presenting the concert and said "honour was restored" with a major concerto from Ravel.

Denve responds that the trend in newly written classical music is rightly back toward works that ordinary people – not just the purists – can enjoy. A learned argument then ensued around the old question of whether great art and popular art are the same thing.

Denve has reinvigorated the RSNO, it is said. The big names joining the orchestra next season, and a rise in average audiences by 4 per cent in Scotland, and 10 per cent in Edinburgh, certainly seem to point to some sort of "Denve effect". In his fifth season, the RSNO is in talks with the conductor about extending his second three-year contract. Let's hope we manage to keep him.

Don't bank on UBS

DOES a chill wind continue to sweep the art markets? UBS AG, the Swiss bank hit hard by the financial crisis, said yesterday that it has closed its "art banking" department, which helps rich clients buy work and build collections. Since 1998, it has helped customers with research and advice on artists, prices, transport and restoration of art.

In the past 18 months, UBS has written down and lost billions of dollars linked to bad debts. It will cut 11 jobs in the move. No doubt there will be bargains to be had in the art market in coming years – in Lyon and Turnbull auctions in Edinburgh, for example – for those who have any cash to spare…