Meet Mike Hatchard

I promised to write about musician Mike Hatchard (right), who wrote an amusing story about jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball, which I re-posted here last week.

Mike and I first worked together exactly 20 years ago, which is a bit scary because it doesn't seem that long ago.

I was editing a magazine at the time so I think he must have written to me to promote something he was doing.

A graduate of the Royal College of Music and a fine jazz pianist who has worked with Cleo Laine, Herbie Flowers and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Mike had a parallel career under the name Marvin Hanglider. According to the Scotsman, it was 'like Victor Borge on acid'.

I was living in Edinburgh so I got to see Mike as Marvin Hanglider at the Edinburgh Festival and it gave me an idea for a variety show co-directed by Mike and another performer I was in contact with, actor Guy Masterson (great nephew of Richard Burton).

If I remember, Mike expressed no great enthusiasm for the idea (he can be curmudgeonly at times). Like everyone else I mentioned it to he was sceptical that we could pull it off but before he could change his mind I went ahead and booked the BBC Concert Hall (now the BBC Radio Theatre) in London.

I can pinpoint the moment Mike's attitude changed. It was the day I took him to see this beautiful art deco studio – with comfortable seating for 300 people – deep in the bowels of Broadcasting House.

I can see him now, walking around the stage before playing a few bars on the concert piano we were told we could use for the show. It was an important early lesson in event management. Get the venue right and you're halfway there.

With the exception of Mike and Guy however we had no other performers so we booked a rehearsal room in Ealing and invited people to audition. (Note: this was eight years before Popstars and Pop Idol and more than a decade before The X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent.)

To our amazement there was a remarkable response and suddenly, after a weekend of auditions, we had a 90-minute show with an eclectic group of singers (pop, jazz, operatic and musical theatre), a rock band featuring the late R&B guitarist Peter Harrison, a folk group, plus comedians, magician and an entertainer who juggled rubber chickens.

Tickets for the evening show sold out so we added an afternoon performance which meant asking everyone to be at Broadcasting House at 8.00am for rehearsal, sound checks and so on. Mike seemed calm but I think he was panicking a bit because rehearsal time was so short.

None of the singers and musicians had worked together before. There were no backing tapes. Everything had to be performed live.

Lesson #2: as a producer make sure you delegate important roles such as director, stage manager and sound engineer to people who know what they're doing. Two years later, in Mike's absence, I learned that lesson the hard way.

The rock band had never played together before but under Mike's musical direction they were superb. So too was almost everyone else. The less said about one of the 'comedians' the better. If they got a laugh I certainly didn't hear it. A nervous titter, perhaps. The audition was great, though!

The BBC sound engineers were incredibly helpful and I still have a recording of the show. An edited version featuring only the musical acts was later released on cassette:

Side One
Marvin Hanglider – 'You Took Advantage Of Me'
Dragonfly – 'Lowlands'
Jim Lorrimore – 'The Lady Is A Tramp'
Nikola Monfort – 'Come Rain Or Come Shine'
Ernie Thorn – 'Be My Love', 'On With The Motley'
Jim Robinson – 'I Wonder Why', 'Music Of The Night'
Kerry Donald – 'Art Is Calling Me', 'Someone Else's Story'

Side Two
Dragonfly – 'Silkie', 'Fishing for Albercore'
Nikola Monfort – 'Orange Coloured Sky'
Rock Band with Peter Harrison – 'Old Love', 'Love Can Wait'
Kerry Donald and Ernie Thorn – 'Amigos Para Siempre'
Ernie Thorn – 'Nessun Dorma'

The inlay card acknowledges the following people:

Recorded live at the BBC Concert Hall, Sunday 17th October 1993. Produced by Simon Clark and directed by Marvin Hanglider and Guy Masterson. Special thanks to stage manager Kris Collier and her team from The Questors Theatre, Ealing. Thanks too to the performers not included on this tape but who nevertheless contributed to a memorable occasion: Allin Kempthorne, Tony Lusion, John Meuleman, Jane Pitt, Louise Green, Peter Gordon and Guy Masterson.

After that Mike and I collaborated on several more events including concerts at the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music. The latter featured violinist Chloe Hanslip who was six at the time and has gone on to have an extremely successful professional career.

Other performers showcased in those events have enjoyed various degrees of success. Guy Masterson, who also performed at a dinner I organised at the House of Commons, is an acclaimed actor and director; cellist Oliver Gledhill has won numerous awards and has given acclaimed recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room in London; concert pianist Elena Konstantinou has performed professionally in the UK and abroad; Nikola Monfort, who was 18 (I think) when she took part in our first show, has appeared in musicals and in 2007 recorded a jazz album; while singer Ernie Thorn presents The Opera Hour on Manx Radio.

Last but not least, our rubber chicken man Allin Kempthorne is now an actor, magician and comedy performer, "balancing my time between film, TV and corporate entertainment".

Mike continues to play and perform around the country. For more information click here. I'm not sure how current this is but see also Herbie Flowers and Mike Hatchard Jazz Breakfast.