Phill Jupitus’ band to play New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion Theatre

Oct 24 2012 by Laura Davis, Birkenhead News

FEW people do enthusiasm as well as Phill Jupitus. He is as equally exuberant about the sight of an old toll bridge while on tour in Sandwich as he is about playing with Paul Weller live on stage.

At this moment, he is extolling the virtues of New Brighton, or rather how he imagines New Brighton to be because he has never set foot there. Until he was recently put straight, he had assumed it was on the South Coast.

“Being a bloody idiot southerner, I assumed it was near Brighton,” he says self-effacingly.

“That’s what the British do best – the grubby, slightly tacky seaside. I come from Southend so I’m preaching to the choir here, but certainly I’ve never felt more English than in places like Margate as it is now.

“There’s something about a 99 when it’s sleeting that feels very English.”

He will be able to discover New Brighton for himself on November 15, when he performs at the Floral Pavilion with his group The Idiot Bastard Band, made up of former Bonzo Neil Innes, The Young Ones’ Adrian Edmundson and Rowland Rivron (of Raw Sex and Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra).

Created as a vehicle for performing comic songs, it was formed after Jupitus, 50, and Edmondson appeared as special guests at a one-off concert to celebrate the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s 40th anniversary in 2006.

They never play the same set more than once and mix in plenty of their own compositions alongside material by everyone from Jake Thackeray to Ian Dury.

The performance starts at 8pm. Standard adult tickets are £20 from 666 0000 or www.floralpavilion.com