She has carved out a reputation on the circuit as someone not to tangle with; she may as well come on with a sign round her neck reading “heckle me at your peril”. Those who are easily offended by swearing are also advised to give McPhail a wide berth.
“I am `in-your-face’,” she told me. “Men in comedy can be laid-back, but for women, comedy is such a weird thing to get into that you have to have a strong personality. All the ones whose names you remember, do.”People certainly remember McPhail’s name; indeed Time Out saw her as such a standard-bearer that it chose her as a Prospective Candidate for London at the General Election.
After successful spells presenting Radio 1’s Windbags with Jo Brand, The Sunday Show for BBC2, and After Hours on Radio 5 Live, McPhail recently road-tested her show at the Edinburgh Festival. She may have been around a while now – she won the Time Out Comedy Award as long ago as 1990 – but the critics were still impressed with the new material. The Scotsman raved that she was in “white-hot form”.Check her out on her 30-date national tour and see if you agree with the reviewer who dubbed her “British comedy’s top bird”.Donna McPhail’s Autumn Tour opens at the Hazlett Theatre, Maidstone (01622 758611) tomorrow, and continues at Norwich Arts Centre (01603 660352) Friday, and Old Town Hall, Hemel Hempstead (01442 242827) Saturday. Jongleurs opened its third London venue, at Bow Wharf, last month. Forthcoming acts include
Graham Norton (right), Tim Clarke, Geoff Boyz, Harry Denford
and Phil Davey.We have 10 vouchers on offer, each admitting two people on a Friday or Saturday night.
To enter the draw, send a postcard with your name, address and daytime telephone number, to:Eye/ Jongleurs Offer, c/oKaren Haynes, 49 Lavender Gardens, Battersea, SW11 1DJ,by 26 September.Bow Jongleurs is at Bow Wharf, 221 Grove Road, London E3. The box-office for Jongleurs at Bow, Camden and Battersea: 0171-924 2766 Vouchers must be used by 30 November 1997.. Woz, a nickname for Antony Worrall Thompson (henceforth to be known here as AWT), is writ large and bright over a small shopfront at the scruffier, end of North Kensington His neighbours are Moroccan and Portuguese cafes. It is colonisation, although the previous occupants, a sort of collective of young Notting Hill chefs started it when they opened Tabac on this site a couple of years back.
Does this make Woz a pioneer? AWT certainly has this reputation, from his first Eighties gimmick at Menage a Trois of serving starters and puddings and “no intercourse”, through the Nineties when he was responsible for a Mediterranean wave (picking up some menu flotsam on the way) in popular London restaurants like Bistro One Ninety, dell ‘Ugo in Soho and Drones in Belgravia. He’s left these places behind, but remains an omnipresent television cook with a garish line in trousers.
When you go to Woz it is not a matter of wandering into an anonymous restaurant and wondering idly, if at all, who the chef is. Ringing to book, the drill is explained and, though it is obvious whose restaurant it is – be prepared for the presence of a genial host who looks like a Mexican bandit baptised in peroxide (AWT protege David Massey runs the kitchen) – beyond that there’s no knowing what’s coming next. For Woz has now latched on to the reasonably revolutionary idea, so far practised only by Sally Clarke, of giving no menu and no choice for dinner. For pounds 22.95 a head there are five courses, limitless mineral water and coffee.If you’re expecting brash from a showman restaurateur, you won’t find it further than the fascia.
The ground-floor restaurant is small, lightly decorated in driftwood shades and very pretty (downstairs is darker, richly coloured and more heavily upholstered – like another restaurant for another season), and the mood friendly. The arrangement frees the beautiful but not too cool staff from flinging menus around and chivvying the indecisive into ordering, allowing them time to explain what you’re about to eat, and help choose wine accordingly.There’s no rush to order or to vacate the table, and, though it’s no less a business than any other restaurant where they’ve calculated the cost of each dish, it gives a better impression of hospitality than most. The only delay came when we wanted to get the bill and go home.But back to the beginning of a long, leisurely evening. First, olives and bread with olive oil (very old AWT, except you used to have to pay for the bread) Heed this early warning: pace yourself.