Jazz & Comedy
If you have been following my blog for a while you know that I only write about things I really like. I sometimes get invited by PR companies to review restaurants and I am always totally honest with them. Yes, I am happy to go as your guest; but if I don’t think its worth a review it won’t get one. If I do go as a guest and write about it I always make it clear in my reviews too! I only publish positive reviews which means my site is less content rich than it could be plus it’s cost me a small fortune. Sometimes I wish I was Jay Rayner as I believe passionately that if you open a business and invite people off the street to come in a pay for what you offer it had better be fantastic. And quite rightly the more you charge for it, the satisfaction level, should go up on a sliding scale. I have learnt to be disappointed and love the eureka times more because of it. I choose not to write negative reviews but Jay Rayner has made a career out of it. In fact is seems the more scathing and totally brutal they are the more they are revered.
Last week I was contacted by the agents representing Jay Rayner who in addition to writing some of the funniest, observant and cutting restaurant reviews you’ll ever read is also a jazz musician! His latest tour combines his musings as a restaurant reviewer with a performance by him and his jazz band playing a food themed 60 minute set. The reviews of his band and the fact that he has just played his first gig and legendary Ronnie Scotts in Soho to great acclaim make this a guaranteed great night out. Would I be interested in writing a blog post to help promote his latest tour for a couple of tickets they said. I thought about it for a millisecond, You see I am one of his biggest (actually at just a fraction over five foot one of his smallest) fans. I had missed his last event in Surrey at Farnham Malting’s last year to go to a pop up supper club (which was fantastic) so seeing him was on my bucket list.
Jay Rayner is my kind of writer, bold, brash and totally honest. I wish I had the same wit, energy, humour and ferocity of language that he applies to every review he writes. I love the way he starts a review by setting a scene before getting down to the nitty gritty. His recent list of the 12 worst things that restaurants do were pretty close to mine too! Particularly his observation that the bill is always given to the man if you are out as a couple. I often buy my husband dinner after all he pays most of the bills and is currently carrying the burden of our daughter’s university adventure. When the waiter/waitress heads for my man I wish I had the courage to say;
“don’t you ever, ever, ever again give the bill to the only person on the table who happens to possess testicles. You have no idea who’s paying for dinner. Put the bill in the middle of that table and walk away”
This latest tour kicks off on the 23rd January in Wavendon and is in Surrey for one night at the Rose Theatre in Kingston on the 23rd February 2016.
