Riverport Radio Podcast
Latest news, interviews, discussions & what’s happening where in St Ives Cambridgeshire.
Riverport Radio Podcast
Episode 5 - We catch up with Al Thompson, Director at St Ives Corn Exchange, we interview Christine Phillpotts, Chair of the St Ives Civic Society, and chat to award winning local filmmaker Dan Attrill.
Episode 5 - We catch up with Al Thompson, Director at St Ives Corn Exchange, we interview Christine Phillpotts, Chair of the St Ives Civic Society, and chat to award winning local filmmaker Dan Attrill.
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I'm Ron and I'm John and I'm Paul and welcome to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 2:Coming up. In this month's podcast, we catch up with Al Thompson, the director of the St Ives Corn Exchange, who brings us up to date with the many events happening this year, plus the associated challenges of running this popular venue. We also interview Christine Philpotts, the chair of a local civic society, and talk about many of the local projects and improvements that are being planned and implemented in St Ives. And finally, dan Attrell, the local filmmaker, joins us to tell us about his latest film project. Dan has won awards for his recent horror film, the Haunted Hall, which was actually shot on location in St Ives Corn Exchange.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 1:Well, good afternoon everybody and welcome back to the Riverport Radio Studio. We're actually back in our studio today, in our lovely surroundings at the Whiskey Cafe. So I'm joined today not just by Paul and John, but with Al Thompson from the St Ives Corn Exchange, and Al's going to give us a little bit of a background on what's going on at the Corn Exchange and how it is these days. So, good afternoon Al, good afternoon Ron. So, al, from my own experience with the Corn Exchange I know that venues everywhere are actually having a pretty tough time, and it must be really difficult with the Corn Exchange. The River Porter recently ran a little article just saying that you're looking for more volunteers and more help and things. Can I ask how's that going?
Speaker 4:Yeah, as you know, I've been involved with them for about two years now two and a quarter years and took over as a finance director last year and since then we have lost a number of directors due to people just age-wise retiring and not wanting to sports anymore, so due to ill health. So we've we came to you asking if you would put an advert out for us. Directors and volunteers are key to the running of the corn exchange. It's as simple as that, and we are short of directors. Um, we have had a couple of people come forward and we're in the process of hopefully them coming in and supporting us. Um, we're getting together next month with them and if they come in, uh, it's some new blood which will help us. Volunteers we struggle with, as you can appreciate, there's a lot of setting up for functions and if our people do it, who are salaried people, it takes longer. If we have volunteers to help we, we have to pay out less hours and it just supports us all the time.
Speaker 1:So we're hoping for more um, but at the moment the volunteers aren't coming forward and they are paramount to us succeeding I know from my own time with the corn exchange that a lot of the perception of local people is that the Corn Exchange somehow or other makes a profit out of what goes on or there's actual sort of monies involved in some way or other. And I think, to put the record straight, it's fair to say that the Corn Exchange is totally non-for-profit and it actually works locally to support the local community. But in terms of finding people to do that, nobody gets paid for it, do they? You don't get paid, do you.
Speaker 4:No, no, none of the directors are paid. We have five members of staff who are paid on the contracts and then we have non-contract people who are zero hours. So we all give up our time for free and currently it's probably about a day, day and a half a week of my time doing the finances and helping support all the meetings. We have to look at the entertainments. As you're well aware, last year we nearly went bust the cost of just maintaining the building, when you talk about three and a half thousand pounds just to pay the electricity and gas bills. We have to make money.
Speaker 4:We're non-profit as a community interest company and so we have to balance the books. Have to balance the books. People say our rates are high, but we do have four different rates which are available for private events uh, regular private events or just one-offs, and same with community. So we have someone in the community who wants to come in every week and support the community and help people um, with keeping fit. We give them the lowest rate, but we have to put rates that will allow us to balance the books. We can't, we can't work without us matching our income to expenditure, and that wasn't happening in the middle of last year you're listening to Riverport radio.
Speaker 4:Riverport radio we've done a big review on that and, with the support of the council and residents in the area, with the Just Giving paid, we brought ourselves back into the black and we're now starting to break even every month and we're looking at ways how we can improve. We've got a really good repertoire of events this year, we believe, and we just need the support of the local community and people coming in to support those events got to keep the St Ives Corn Exchange going because it is a place for arts and entertainment, which I give my time for free, and I do it because I believe in the building and what we do. As you say, john, I appreciate saying we have a good team. They are. They work very hard.
Speaker 4:They do far more hours than they are actually paid for because they want to keep the building going and we just need people to come and buy tickets, come and support, and if we can get some volunteers just to come and help the odd hour a week, it'd be great. But I know everybody's time is tight, the economic crisis we're currently in, people are struggling. But to give the odd hour or two, if they just come in and they'll get it back, they'll get their time back with a drink at an event or a free ticket to an event I've just given. We've got a load of chairs we're borrowing tomorrow from the free church and I said to the ladies I said that's very kind if you want to come to Silent Disco you can have a free ticket to come in and she's hoping to get there for a few hours.
Speaker 4:So we are. We just want to support the community.
Speaker 6:Well, I think, actually to be more positive, the Corn Exchange does a wonderful job and that there are a lot of venues around which aren't anywhere near as successful as the Corn Exchange, and the fact that now I think it has a fantastic reputation for the amount that the fantastic concerts that have been going on and continue to go on. I think we compete extremely well, even with places like the Cambridge Corn Exchange in terms of value for money and the reward in terms of the quality of the music and the things that are going on. You host the cinema.
Speaker 6:Screams and Dives on a regular basis. You have children's shows. You know, on a regular basis we have. You have children's shows. You have stage shows, like Shakespearean epilogues that were on the other year weren't there. It's fantastic. The range of stuff that's going on is really impressive.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio, stuff that's going on is really impressive.
Speaker 1:you're listening to riverport radio, riverport radio how do you manage with issues like cleaning and the like? Because this can't. You know, it's a big building. You've got a lot of a lot of real estate there, so how do you actually deal with cleaning?
Speaker 4:as an issue. Well, it is an issue to us. Um example is my cleaning bill up to last month was a thousand pounds a month from a local cleaner coming in to do the main buildings, the hall, the flexi rooms, but it's the toilets that are the biggest hitter. We have to have somebody in to clean every night and especially after big events. It is a bone of contention because we obviously have CCTV in the building and we did do a little bit of a check to look and we had about 95 people come into the building in an hour in the middle of the day and out of those 95 people people only four went upstairs to use the cafe. So we're talking, 95 percent of the people are just coming in to use our facilities. But no problem with that, because when I've literally spoke to a lot of people and they say your facilities are far better than the local ones, so they come in and use it.
Speaker 1:How much do the council actually contribute towards the payment of that? Because you're supplying a public service there, so how much do the council give you to help towards?
Speaker 4:that Less than a penny. So that's about a nil. Really. They don't give us anything. I have approached the subject on numerous occasions and we are now looking at that we will have to close the toilets off If we don't have hirers in the main Charter Hall area and the cafe is closed. We are looking that we're going to lock the toilets off and I know that will upset a lot of people. People. Um, we have signs on the doors to say I mean I've explained how much we have spent last year on and it was nearly 20 000 pounds last year on repairs to the toilets and cleaning, and I've got signs on the door. We've put tins next to the door asking for contributions and we may get 20 pound a week, 80 pound a month. It's nothing on a thousand pound bill we have. So we, we don't get anything from the council. I have broke the subject but, um, they don't budget for that, so they're not, they're not prepared to commit upstairs.
Speaker 1:now you've got the lovely riverport cafe and I know you know you hold events and things up there, but as a a coffee shop for over a week, how's that going?
Speaker 4:Because that's always a nice place to sit, it's a lovely place and it has done slightly better since we got the big flags outside because people didn't know it was there, because it's quite a building that just blends into St Ives Frontier and so people don't really know it's up there. So we've got that. We've got a lot of people go up it. It brings in a regular uh income but we are reducing our hours down because we're open until two o'clock most days or all five days of the week, but unfortunately between one and two because of our electronic uh payment system. We can see when we've had the busy periods and generally between one and two. We make less money than we pay the staff.
Speaker 4:So with effect of the first of march we are closing at one o'clock instead of two on all five days of the week. We stopped about a year ago opening at weekends because the staff costs were more than the people coming in. They just people are in town, they want to nip into cost Costa or somewhere else and get a quick coffee, so they weren't coming in. So we've closed on a Saturday last year and we're reducing down. We were going to close Wednesdays in total because Wednesdays are very poor, but it just breaks even. So at least if we're getting people in the building, then no, we're there, so I'm happy if we're breaking even.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 1:It's a nice place to sit in the Riverport Cafe there and actually even if you're working on your laptop or your tablet in the corner there and someone bringing you a nice cup of coffee and sort of a nice, pleasant environment, it's really nice, so nice to get the word out there, but that's uh, yeah it is.
Speaker 4:it's a great atmosphere. We've got a very good wi-fi, so people come in there with you, say, with laptops and work, um, and we've had to stop our loyalty card, which is a shame, and our VIP membership because it was costing us about £3,500 a year. What? Yeah, sorry, john, you can't have anything free now, but we're, £3,500 a year is quite a lump. So, yeah, it is. I say we haven't, we've postponed it. So, as I say, we're still paying back a big bounce back loan that we got through Covid and we're looking to pause that for a while to assist us with the way we take things forward. So the finances are tight, but we see that we're. I've just done a prediction for a council meeting that's happening tonight, actually, uh, of our flow through to the end of the year and we are managing and I've been quite conservative on predictions, but we're looking good.
Speaker 4:We need support to the big events. We've got a really good diary of events for this year and, as I said, tomorrow night we've got the boxing, which is St Ives Boxing Club coming back into St Ives, which they're really pleased, and we're completely sold out on the balcony, stand up and seating downstairs, and we've also got Chapel Arts tomorrow night. So they're up in the other end of the building and so we've completely sold out. That would be a great night for us. We've got Silent Disco on Saturday night, which the tickets are going up, and we've done one before and that was a great success.
Speaker 4:So, and then, looking into the year, we've got the boxing coming back. Hopefully we've got the wrestling coming back. We're starting murder mysteries We've got three of them booked in for the year where they do an acting in the middle of the room and we have tables all around and we're looking whether it's going to have a meal or sort of a nibble trays on for people, and so we're just pushing through. We're trying to bring in children, but at the demographic of St Ives we're trying to bring in the younger people in, but a lot of the time they go to the pubs where the bands are free, so we have to charge just to make sure we cover our costs.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio, riverport.
Speaker 3:Radio Riverport Radio have to charge just to make sure we cover our costs.
Speaker 1:you're listening to riverport radio, riverport radio well, sitting here in the studio as we are at the moment, we're we're joined by our john and, uh, for those that may not know, john is also a very active member of the town team and, as a result of that, he's the man who's in charge of things like the Chapel Arts programme and various other events that go on in the Corn Exchange. So, john, how do you find it working with the Corn Exchange?
Speaker 6:Well, it's very easy actually. We've come to an accommodation where we charge £10 a ticket for the Chapel Arts concerts and they're on the last Friday of every month and the whole purpose of those is to bring in musicians that don't normally get to play, so they might be interesting music. So we've got string quartets, we've got saxophone quartets, so tomorrow night we've got Kim Millie Rue and Lee Cave Berry probably the most prominent musician that we've ever Kim Billy Rue and Lee Cave Berry, probably the most prominent musician that we've ever had in the town because he's written so many hits, so many hits and he's travelling all the way from Wales to come and play.
Speaker 6:I think he's got a place in Cambridge so he stops over the overnight there. But yeah, it's. It's a really good atmosphere in the Report Cafe. It's relaxed Now. Tomorrow night will be a bit interesting because there's so many people using the building. We're using the room at the front, the Tony Burgess room, for the actual concert. It's going to be really interesting because you're going to have something like 300 people in the building at least and every bit will be being used. And the nice thing is the profit from the Chapel Arts is split with the Corn Exchange. As you know. Some comes back to the town team and that goes to pay for the free concerts during the Riverport Jazz and Blues Festival. So it's all recycled and comes back into the town for the people.
Speaker 6:Jazz and Blues this year, I think, has got quite a big input to the Corn Exchange, one of the issues about the Jazz and Blues Festival some people have noticed last year some people couldn't get into some of the venues because there's so many people wanting to come to the festival. So this year we decided to use the Corn Exchange the main room more because it's the biggest venue we've got in the town centre part. We can accommodate more people coming and so this year you're hosting about five different concerts over the four days and it's important that people come in there and buy the drinks from the Corn Exchange and that will help your coffers as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah, your events really do help us. We know that and they are in my financial plan throughout for the whole year and you do support us really well, so we really appreciate that. Even down to posters and signage around the town, I've just put three new posters out today around the marketplace and they're all out.
Speaker 6:You've got one going on the side of the Ivo next week. It's in print at the moment. In fact I'm hoping to post it this afternoon if it's printed, so that'll come up.
Speaker 4:I mean, I've got a meeting straight after this with Flavacast yeah, they're looking to come back. And I can't not mention Barclays, who are in there two days a week with their pop-up bank. Their financial support has been absolutely paramount to us. We lost out on Lloyds, unfortunately, because they wanted the same day and by the time we got back and we did a bit of shuffling, they'd gone to the library, yeah. But I've also written to the Halifax in. I took a letter into the Halifax in London saying if you want to pop up bank, yeah. So we're pushing for everything we can that will bring in regular revenue.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio, riverport Radio.
Speaker 4:Riverport Radio. I must mention the hirers. We have a lot of hirers that come in and do a lot of stuff Yoga and martial arts and stuff like that and they come in. You three, yeah, you three. One of the best we have I love to watch is the Dementia Choir. Yeah, fantastic that is. If you want to feel good about yourself, come in and watch that one day, because to see them singing and the joy it brings to them. If I could, I'd do it for free for them, because it is a pleasure to watch. It is, isn't it?
Speaker 6:It's an absolute pleasure. I've yet to come out of one of their concerts without a smile on my face.
Speaker 4:It's so lovely, and they're really good singers as well, aggy just brings them together, and she did a concert for us. All the funds went to us. She is an amazing individual who has really taken the Corn Exchange to her heart. So people like that and the? U? As you say. They have cribbage upstairs and the painting. They have so many different events and they're absolutely superb.
Speaker 6:all the people are coming, so the word is if you want to keep the corn exchange and see it get even better, come and support it as much as possible, yeah. And if you want to keep the corn exchange and see it get even better, come and support it as much as possible, yeah. And if you want to help be a director, yeah. Get in touch with al yeah, if they come in and people want to, we'll, we'll accept.
Speaker 4:We'd love people to come in the more the merrier because we can spread the load and and it's literally the amount of time you want to have a meeting once a month. Uh, you come to that and your opinion matters, and then we may sneak off and have a quick drink after the meeting in the, in a local hostillery and then and volunteers to come in and help just maybe set up once a month. You come in, help set up at a big event. Because, if you imagine, every monday we have the market and so if we have an event at the weekend we've got to strip that down and get all the markets set up for the Monday morning. So just to come in for a couple of hours could be of great benefit to us.
Speaker 2:So where would they get in touch with you? What's the best way of people listening to the podcast to get in touch with you?
Speaker 4:If you want to, you look on the website. There is a number of different emails website. There is a number of different emails. We've got hospitality, we've got bookings and manager at corn exchange, so the three different or just walk in upstairs. We have the office upstairs opposite the coffee shop that is manned between about I would say, eight till five every day, apart from weekends. So just come in and say I'm interested and they will take your details, forward them on to me and then we'll contact you.
Speaker 1:Excellent is it all sold out for Kimberley Roo tomorrow night? Yeah, kimberley Roo is sold out, unfortunately, so anybody listening, you've missed out on that one, kimberley. By the way, for anybody who doesn't know, he's the man who wrote Walking on Sunshine, so it's Katrina and the waves.
Speaker 6:I'm not sure if he'll do that tomorrow, but you never know, he might do the last two concerts he's done for us. He turns up with bags of CDs. He must have the biggest collection of CDs he's had produced over the years and he obviously decided he needed to get rid of some and he literally handed out. It was worth people coming and paying the tenant because they ended up with about 20 quid's worth of CDs.
Speaker 1:So is he?
Speaker 4:upstairs he's upstairs, yeah he's upstairs because you're full downstairs half of upstairs.
Speaker 1:Half of upstairs, yeah, brilliant well, al, thanks for coming in and, you know, for listeners, you know we must get out and support the Corn Exchange. It's a fantastic local venue. We really need to do the best we can, but thanks, al, thank you and thanks for what you put into it.
Speaker 4:Thank you, my pleasure, and thank you guys. It's been a nice, pleasant afternoon. For now, cheers, al, thank, you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch with us if you'd like to feature on our riverport radio podcast. Whether you're a business or an individual, and you've got something to say or something to share, please contact us using the following details. You can text us direct from our podcast. You'll see the send us a text prompt just under the play button. You can message us direct from our Facebook page Search on Facebook for Riverport Radio Podcast or write to us via email. Editor at theriverporteruk. We look forward to hearing from you. You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 6:Yes, good morning and welcome to Riverport Radio. I think this is our fifth.
Speaker 2:It is indeed.
Speaker 6:And today we're at Fellmonger House, which, for those who don't know, is in the Broadway, the pink building, I think we call it and we're in the home of Christine Philpotts, who's the chairman chair, or chairman Chair, chair, of the Civic Society. And to start with, I think Christine's going to outline how the Civic Society came to happen in the first place.
Speaker 5:Yes indeed. Thank you very much, John. I've been wanting to come on your podcast and hoped you weren't going to overlook me, so I'm very pleased to be here Sitting in my own sitting room With a nice cup of coffee yes, with a nice cup of coffee. So I'm Christine. I took over the chair of Civic Society about 18 months ago now.
Speaker 5:What people probably don't realise is what Civic Society does or why it's in town to start with. And so just very briefly to say it's been in existence since 1968 and the reason for its existence was that at the time, the council, in all of its wisdom, had intended to run a motorway through the town, through the end of Ramsey Road, across across Holt Island, across the meadow, etc. And completely ruined the west end of town. So people upped and formed a group, dug deep in their pockets, paid for a barrister and went to court and put an alternative suggestion, which was accepted, which is now the Harrison Way Bypass named after the first chair and the first secretary, I think, of the Civic Society, who were Harrison's brother and sister.
Speaker 5:Since then we haven't had anything quite as exciting as that to do, but we've always been involved in promoting the heritage of the town and trying to protect those parts of it which everybody wants to keep and in fact even those parts of it that some people don't even know about. So over the years we've got one of our bread and butter activities is actually working with town council and HTC to try and prevent the worst of planning atrocities happening in town. Now we're sometimes we're successful and sometimes we're not. But uh, two years ago, once, really once I got involved with civic society, I was up nosing about in Peterborough to find out how they did it and discovered that there is something that every town and every city ought to have and it's called the local list. So everybody knows about listed buildings.
Speaker 5:So you know, in St Ives the bridge is listed, town hall is listed. If anybody wants to know, if you go on HDC's website there's a long list of buildings which are protected and are listed. My own house is listed. It's grade 2. However, the local list is an opportunity for local people to say what it is they've got in their area that they think makes their neighbourhood special. So it might be a wall, a window, a beautiful pair of gates, you know, just something which is different and gives a bit of identity to the area.
Speaker 6:And anyone can make a suggestion, anybody?
Speaker 5:can suggest. So at that time we had a local magazine called St Ives Now and I did a piece in there and a lot of people wrote in to say what they would like to have protected. And subsequently, since then, people are still telling me, and so we have a list of about 15 things. There are little windows, there are walls, there are interesting doors that somebody's found that looks incredibly ornate to be where it is. You know, boot scrapers, boot scrapers Quite a few of those.
Speaker 5:Hoppers. Do you know what a hopper is? A hopper is? You know when you get the drain water pipes that run along under the roof? Of older buildings.
Speaker 5:particularly the victorians, thought this was an opportunity to make the the point where the pipes merge an attractive thing yes and so they're hoppers, and often they're designed and they're ornate right and so we've added them to our list, and the plan is that once a month on our brand new sparkling website, which is interactive and got lots of photographs on it, that we will write up about one of these items. So I think the first one is going to be boot scraper. Oh, excellent.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport.
Speaker 3:Radio Riverport. Radio Riverport, radio Riverport.
Speaker 6:Radio Riverport Radio, Just on that. You say that you work with the town council and the district council. Of course the district council is the planning authority. Yes, that's right. So I'm assuming that you are asked your opinion quite often by the planners, or not? Or do you have to keep an eye on it and make comments anyway?
Speaker 5:I think it's both. I think because we've been around for so long and my predecessor, david stewart, was hugely knowledgeable about uh planning and had been chair for so many years. He knew a lot about the planning for the town and so I think it's very common for town council to actually approach us to say what do you think about this? But on the whole it is the other way around. It's us either attending meetings, we download the agenda every month, we have a look, see what's up there, and then we'll make comments so you're not a statutory consultee but, locally the town council, like to hear what you've got to say definitely, definitely, well it's your members, really isn't it?
Speaker 6:so this is, this is something that joining the civic society allows members to do, which is to contribute to the conversation about planning matters Definitely, and what I would say is that the Civic Society is like a lot of community groups it's run by volunteers.
Speaker 5:Nobody's paid. We have about 400 members, something like that, which sounds reasonable, but in a town of 17,000, I'd quite like it to be a lot more than that. So you know we're looking to encourage people to get involved in helping us to preserve the town. So can I go on and talk about Fawcett at this point?
Speaker 6:absolutely yeah.
Speaker 5:Fawcett stands for the Forum for the Regeneration of St Ives Town.
Speaker 5:It's a bit of a handful, a bit of a mouthful, but basically it's looking at what we can do, what we can do as the community, to make things happen, to encourage footfall into town, to encourage people to look after their shop premises perhaps a bit better to encourage people to look after their shop premises, perhaps a bit better to see if we can find ways of improving the look, particularly of our conservation area, because all of the people who come to St Ives come because they want to see the bridge, they want to ride on the riverboat, they want to go and see the chapel.
Speaker 5:There's so many lovely things in the town and everybody has to go down Bridge Street in order to see that, or they'll explore further out into Market Hill and some of the back streets. Many of these have got a bit scruffy over the years and so we're looking at how we could improve the look of them without spending too much money, Because A we don't have any money at the moment and, B it's actually quite difficult to get it from HDC or from town council.
Speaker 6:Yes, obviously the local authorities are. Budgets are squeezed.
Speaker 5:Yes, they are particularly with all the restructuring that's happening with HDC. We're not really sure how that will impact on us or how that will impact on us, so just to sort of go over what you said about force it.
Speaker 6:So I just say it's force and eyes, which is simpler than for regeneration Force and eyes. And in principle, the idea is that the people who are interested in making sure St Ives is a better place come together, put their ideas together how we can make improvements, and that can include things like getting the network of the shopkeepers, for instance, down Bridge Street. They've now got their own WhatsApp network so they can talk to each other.
Speaker 6:The group is also putting forward proposals for a sort of heritage statement, so that when a shop comes and puts a sign up that it's in keeping with the visual side of St Ives, so it doesn't look out of place.
Speaker 5:That's exactly right.
Speaker 6:Some of them can be a bit on the garish yes, it's all to do with encouraging people.
Speaker 5:It's interesting, one of the local shops that's just opened a new hairdresser's asked whether there was a conservation design, design for the town, uh, and they very wisely decided to emulate Janet Church's very beautiful green shop.
Speaker 6:Yes, we've got good examples.
Speaker 5:Yes, we have some very good examples, and on the basis of that we are pulling together this template, which we will run by town council and make sure that everybody's happy with. But we would like to encourage people to make our town even more beautiful than it is and particularly with the empty shops at the moment, we're looking at what we might be able to do to put things in the window so that they don't look empty for as long as they are.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 6:Riverport Radio another thing I know that for sort of been speaking about is making the most of what we've got and in that category comes the octagon.
Speaker 6:Now I'll just give a little bit of history to the octagon, because it's it's probably quite well known now because in the River Portal we've written about it several times. But just to remind people, the Octagon is a very interesting building. It was the auction room for the cattle market that existed in St Ives, which reputedly was the second largest outside of London at one time back in the 1800s, and obviously the railings around the car park the cattle market car park are still some of the original railings of of the um area that was built just for the cattle market. So the octagon was the auction room. It was only built in 1940. It's not very old, but it has been deemed a building of significance for the town and sadly it's only been used as a store for wheelie bins and tables by the district council who own the building, and so one of your projects is to try and make better use of that building and I'll let you tell us what sort of ideas might come out of that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
Speaker 6:John.
Speaker 5:One of the three things came out of the discussions with local people about how they'd like to improve the town centre, none of which ought to cost overly much. The primary one, as you rightly say, was the octagon. The octagon is something which has been raised with me when I've been going out talking into the community about what people want preserved, and again and again and again. So despite the fact it was only built in the 1940s, it's such an iconic part of the town centre. Everybody wants it preserved. Everybody's very worried that if that end of town gets redeveloped that it will be accidentally or otherwise knocked down and that we ought to be doing something. So I know that some years ago there was a group in the town that put in a bid with HTC for the Octagon. For whatever reasons, that never was progress and the request was declined. We've taken an opportunity to resurrect that.
Speaker 5:The timing seems to be better now, particularly with all local authorities now doing very much more work with their local communities and encouraging volunteers, and indeed the government's levelling up. Money has cascaded down into funding for local communities and some of that is actually specifically for purchasing local assets or leasing local assets, and in our case we don't have the funds to purchase it. But what we did was riding on the back of the bid that we put in before. But what we did was riding on the back of the bid that had put in before. We updated it and sent it into HDC asking for a discussion about it to see whether it would be at all possible for this to be converted where it stands, in its current location, as an indoor market probably, which would be a nice addition to our current markets, although there might be other uses for it as well.
Speaker 6:Well, it's been mentioned that it's an ideal place to have tourist information, because people get off the bus there, right next to it, and the main car park's there.
Speaker 5:Yes, no, exactly right. So I think, whatever, I'm being optimistic, I think we will get it at some point. So I think, whatever it is, I'd like it to be an indoor market. There's no reason why we ought not to have a tourist information office desk, with some volunteers in there just to point people in the right direction.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio, riverport.
Speaker 3:Radio Riverport Radio.
Speaker 5:So that leads me on to saying that some of the other things that people have asked us to make sure happens for town is better signage, because people coming into town from the thicket or from the bus station, from the park and ride, from anywhere, really don't necessarily have very good signage telling them how to get to the river for the riverboat or the quay or some of the more interesting buildings around town.
Speaker 5:So we would like to do that. It's part of our package of improvements that we're in the process of writing up, and the other one is such a simple thing. And the other one is such a simple thing. It's actually better use, better improvement to how the alleyways and the lanes are kept, because if we're encouraging people to park in the car parks and walk into town, those cut-throughs and those lanes and those alleyways are how they're going to cut through, and some of them are awful, they're dark and they're dingy. So you know, a bit of lighting, a bit of paving, so it's all that kind of thing that we're looking to do.
Speaker 6:Great. So that's something that you're working on at the moment, in particular with the Fawcett Group. What else is the Civic Society planning for the next year or two?
Speaker 5:Right. Well, our ongoing things are our monthly talks. They're always pretty well attended. Now I have to tell you about our next talk because we're really excited about it. Last year we had Dr Rob Larter from the British Antarctic Survey come and talk to us about climate change and about very relevant for this area, which is so flat, and you know flatlands of East Anglia are going to be really an area of great concern if the rivers do, the sea levels do rise. So we asked him to come and talk to us about it and it went down so well. We were packed that night. We had over 400 people turn up for that and everybody wanted him to come back.
Speaker 5:So we've asked him to come back and he is bringing some other professionals with him and we're going to have a Q&A panel on climate change, on rising sea levels and all the other things. So we've invited he's bringing his panel along. I have invited various other appropriate organisations I won't say who they are across Cambridgeshire and across Huntington, and so everybody's invited. We're hoping to have a really active audience asking the right questions and some very good answers.
Speaker 6:And that's on the 28th of March, and that's going to be on the 28th of March 7.30.
Speaker 5:It's a Friday night, so sorry about that if you normally go out on a Friday night somewhere. But it's worth coming. It's going to be a brilliant night. And where's that going to be held?
Speaker 2:That, and where's that going to be held?
Speaker 5:That will be held at the Free Church in Market Square in St Ives Town Centre and everybody is welcome.
Speaker 6:Good, that's excellent. So anything else you've got planned for immediate.
Speaker 5:Well, we need to do a little bit of fundraising On a small level. For the civic side, we don't really need a lot of money. We get enough money in from our subs to pay our speakers and such things. But it's always nice to have a little bit extra. So I thought, a little bit of fun. This year we're going to do our own version of Antiques Roadshow.
Speaker 5:Oh right With Hyperion auctioneers. It's going to be in June, so the posters will go out and we'll make sure everybody knows about it in good time, probably 7th of June, and it's going to be a combined valuation day so everybody can come along and bring Granny's chamber pot and have it valued. But we're also going to have an auction in the afternoon.
Speaker 6:Where's that going to be?
Speaker 5:That's going to be probably in the Free Church, but to be confirmed, really, that We've also asked Hyperion if they'd be very kind and bring along a whole series of things that are just worth talking about so they can give us a bit of history of that. And we'll do a bit of a raffle and we'll just see. I have an idea for you, you might be able to tag this on.
Speaker 6:Of course, it's the 600th anniversary of the bridge, that's right and we're asking uh, as many groups in the town as possible to contribute to that.
Speaker 6:Yes, we've got um artists doing some sort of um artistic event in the chapel area. We're going to reinstate a drawbridge and make people pay a tithe to bring their sheep across. We've obviously got it being blown up by 450 troops from the Civil War Reenactment Society. I was wondering whether it would be quite nice if amongst the items not necessarily to be auctioned, but if there is stuff from very old stuff 600, and particularly from the Civil War period, because that's one of the major periods that we're covering.
Speaker 6:It would be nice, wouldn't it, with some round head hats, and we could even work with the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon. If you want to get involved, they may well come along with some exhibits that would add to your event.
Speaker 5:I will definitely explore that. It's a very good idea. The other thing I am going to do for you, john, for your 600th anniversary, we're going to have a special talk which I'm in the process of organising, but I haven't got yet set up so I can't tell you what it will be. But we will have one and it will link somehow to what you're doing you're listening to Riverport Radio, riverport.
Speaker 5:Radio Riverport Radio so, yeah, lots of nice things. Just going back to the finance, though. Finance is always so important Because we have all of these ideas in mind for helping to improve the town centre, and so many people want to get involved in this, but we do need money to do it. So we're thinking big. We're thinking if we can't get the local funding that we need and hopefully we will, but if we don't, backstop is, we're going to think big and we're going to try and do heritage lottery fund or something so what I'd really like is of listeners today.
Speaker 5:If there's anybody out there that's done big fundraising applications, who's you know got a finance background, because this is a little bit outside of our normal territory anybody with a bit of legal background as well, because I think, in terms of moving forward, we do always need to be sure that we're operating within the law. So if anybody's out there and would like to help us, I would very much welcome that and how would they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:what's the best way?
Speaker 5:yes, so you can always find me on chair at stivescivicorguk and our website is similar, so it's wwwstivescivicorguk. Our website is well worth a look. We spent no money on it last year. I'm pleased to say that I was approached in Waitrose by a lady who said to me I wonder if you'd be interested in me coming to help you with your website. And I just fell on her neck and thanked her. Great, you know. She has turned our website round and made it absolutely wonderful for us without a penny being spent, really. So please do come and look at it. We've got the items that I mentioned earlier on the local list items. We've got information about the faucet group. There's all the talks information. There's lots of photographs of things that we've been involved in in the past. It's worth a look excellent.
Speaker 6:Well, christine, thank you very much for inviting you um, inviting us, rather, I should say, to your home um, and it's been great to hear what the civic society is doing. Um, I was approached quite a number of years ago I think it's actually before um covid hit that um, like a lot of the groups, the civic society was was, uh, membership was getting older and older and older and sadly dying off. Yes, but it seems like you've revitalized that and we've got some more impetus coming, which is great well, we have got impetus, but we do need more members.
Speaker 5:We've got a very small management committee at the moment, so if anybody has got energy and got some ideas, we would welcome them and open arms it's been great.
Speaker 6:Thank you very much for inviting us you're very well thank you, christine, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:We'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch with us if you'd like to feature on our Riverport Radio podcast, whether you're a business or an individual, and you've got something to say or something to share, please contact us using the following details. You can text us direct from our podcast. You'll see the send us a text prompt just under the play button. You can message us direct from our Facebook page search on Facebook for Riverport Radio Podcast or write to us via email. Editor at theriverporteruk. We look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio, riverport Radio.
Speaker 2:Next up. Before we interview Dan Attrell, the local filmmaker, here's a short audio clip from one of his horror trailers.
Speaker 8:Why would?
Speaker 6:you do this to me. How could you betray the love that we had?
Speaker 8:I loved you, I would have never done anything like this to you can't get away with this right, oh, hi again.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm back back in the studio with John and Paul and we're joined now with Dan Attrell. Now Dan is a local filmmaker and Dan and I first met each other when we were trying to reopen the Corn Exchange after the COVID period. Covid period when Dan came and filmed for us all the little aspects that go on in the Corn Exchange and put it to music so we could put it out on on social media to show everybody what goes on at the Corn Exchange and encourage everybody back. But it turned out, having sort of met Dan, that he gets involved in all sorts of film projects and be interested. Dan's going to tell us something about what that is. So good afternoon, dan, nice to see you.
Speaker 8:Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me. Anyway, I'm very excited about coming on to this podcast. I'm a big fan of the actual local newspaper that you do so. Once I heard that you were doing a podcast, obviously I reached reached out. I was excited to pop on the one of the podcast at some point, whenever you could have me inside.
Speaker 1:thank you for having me so when did you get into your your filmmaking career, and was it sort of a I don't know, a love of De Niro?
Speaker 8:well, forever, I'll be them into film or storytelling more than film. When I was a kid, I used to play with my brothers and that we used to play our own films. Basically we'd act out like action scenes and just stuff like that. And then when I went into college, after my school years, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I did a year of IT because I was like, oh, it's the future, computer's going to be running everything, but I didn't really enjoy it. So after that I was looking for something else to do. Media came up and they had stuff to do with film and stuff. Yeah, that's what I decided to apply for that. I got on that course and that's where my love of filmmaking came.
Speaker 1:I loved everything about making films the creation of it, the editing of it, because absolutely everything, um, and obviously I could tell my stories through film, which was fantastic well, I mean, you did a great job for helping me out with corn exchange stuff, but some of those uh sort of short films you made afterwards went on to win awards or something, one of which I remember you doing in the, in the hall itself as a haunted hall. What was that all about? To be honest, we wanted to show that at the hall, but we never actually got around to doing that.
Speaker 8:I'm still really hoping to be able to show it at some point, hopefully. But the haunted hall was a, because obviously we worked on that advert, um, and I had a connection with the people who ran the hall and, um, I was able to use it as a location once again. So I remember talking to my co-producer, lewis taylor. I was talking to him about we got this location. We could film here, should we like, what should we do? So we just came up with a quick idea of trying to do it really locally. So everyone that's in the film is local talent and, yeah, luckily the Corn Exchange allowed us to use it over one night. We filmed a short horror film over one night during one night in the whole, in the entire hall and, yeah, luckily that one went on to win a couple of awards and stuff different film festivals.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport, radio Riverport.
Speaker 6:Radio. While you were there, you didn't see a real ghost.
Speaker 8:No, ron told me about this ghost that apparently lives there. Yeah, there is one there. Unfortunately he didn't pop, or she didn't pop out at one point. I wouldn't mind it. The ghost could have had a cameo if he wanted to. So you've seen it.
Speaker 1:I've not seen it, but I have heard it when we were getting the Riverport cafe ready to to open I worked late there very night a few nights, essentially sort of decorating and whatever. And you do actually hear the door on the actual balcony. Well, you'll hear it open and close and you will hear footsteps walking around the gallery. Oh wow. And more than one occasion it had me opening the door, looking to see what, what was around me, and there's never anything there. But I did leave the lights on after that.
Speaker 1:It did kind of bother me a bit. A co-director at the time told me about this. I think she called him Fritz, but she sort of said Fritz is always there and I thought, right, that's it, leave the lights on. I'm going to go and check that out. I will say there was moments in there, especially after Ron told me the story there, and I thought, right, that's it, leave the lights on and go check that out.
Speaker 8:I will say there was moments in there, especially after Ron told me the story. There was moments where, like the rest of the crew was doing something, I just was left there alone in the hall and I was sitting there like am I going to hear anything? I was sort of reaching out to hear anything, but I bought you For me. I did experience no actual hauntings. There's a lot of hauntings in the actual film, but I had the experience for them.
Speaker 6:So you actually do everything for a film, right From storyboarding, the original storylines, the scripting. Do you script or do you do it all on paper?
Speaker 8:or do you rely on people? Just to no, no, I do a script. Yeah, basically, I do absolutely everything I can't with the idea. Well, really, I work as a duo with my co-producer, lewis Taylor. We run a company together that makes all these short films and sometimes, on the odd occasion, a feature film. And yeah, we normally often, me and him, we'll do our own individual stories, throw the ideas at each other and we pick the few that we think oh, that sounds good, that could do. Well, that could be something that we could make, because sometimes you think of an idea and you're like yep we don't have the budget or anything to do anything
Speaker 8:like that. We can make films that are great on hardly any money. And so the one the Haunted Hall that was made on very, very little money, just as I said, one night in the Corn Exchange, which we got for free, and then, luckily, all the people that got involved a lot of them, I knew so they just came and done it for free and yeah, so it was virtually free. More, just my time is what was needed for that. But, yeah, I come up with the script. I do most of the film making, so I'll do the camera work. Most of the time. Maybe I'm in Haunted Hall, I'm in it, so I'm an actor as well. I'm actually doing the camera work for that film.
Speaker 8:My co-producer was we both do the same, similar roles on our own individual films. If he's going to act in it, I'll do the camera work. If I'm going to act in it, he's going to do the camera work. But the uh, the latest film that we're working on, um, which is our second feature film, that's actually a sequel to the haunted heist, the haunted hall yeah, it's called the haunted heist and it's basically again set in the corn exchange and but it's a much more the haunted hall, yeah, it's called the haunted heist and it's basically again set in the corn exchange and but it's a much more of a bigger film, it's a much more bigger crew when you say feature film.
Speaker 6:How long does the film last?
Speaker 8:uh, anywhere between like 70 to three hours really. Yeah, like this film is actually gonna gonna be more towards about 70 minutes, so about an hour and 10 hour and 20 minutes kind of film. But, as I say, most of it's set in the Corn Exchange. I'm assuming none of you have seen Haunted Hall yet, but there's things that are set up in that film when the explanations and the payoffs will be in the feature films. So when you watch the feature it will explain what you saw in the short film.
Speaker 2:Basically, You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 2:So where can people see you? Is it all on YouTube?
Speaker 8:Yes, all of our work, apart from my very latest short film, is on YouTube. All you have to do is just write my name. Normally, daniel, you've actually produced the film. How do you go about getting it into you?
Speaker 2:know the kind of mainstream and getting it into, whether it's film festivals or whatever. How do you go about doing that?
Speaker 8:so originally what we used to do is just throw them on YouTube as soon as they were done. Throw it on YouTube. Hopefully it gets to be an audience of it being on there. But yeah, the last really since moving up here, we decided like, obviously we'd like to get some accolades from our films. So we go through a website called Film Freeway, which is like a film festival kind of Website that you use, you put, you upload your film to that Fit that website, and then have millions and millions of film festivals and you just go through, obviously, try and figure out which ones it would be super suitable for, and then just I'm thought you have to paid for the entries that you paid for the film to be submitted. You see, if you hear back a lot of the time, you don't.
Speaker 2:But okay, and then you get into some kind of process where they say, okay, we really like your film and we'd like it to be in the festival, and then you've gone on to win some awards run mentioned earlier.
Speaker 8:Yeah, yeah yeah, uh, horny hall, for example, that one, um it was, it's called. Uh, I'm originally from Romford, so we always submit to the Romford Film Festival and they've got a horror festival as well, the Romford Horror Festival. So we submitted Haunted Hall to the horror festival and another film we made at the time called Dull, which is another horror, short horror film, and luckily both of them won an award called the cheap thrill award, because obviously it was made of a certain low budget. So that was the first time we actually like went up, we took the award and all that sort of stuff and that was 20, 20, 21. That was excellent, very exciting times normally when we submit it, because it's a lot of time, like international festivals and stuff like that, so we can't go to it.
Speaker 8:So but we do, like we've won, and they send you like what they call the law rules. Yeah, because they send us that and sort of stuff and sometimes, on the rare occasion it will send you out on the wall, depends what type of one you want. Yeah, so that's how we normally go about with stuff, but recently, especially with the features, because we do want to get into like step into actually making it as a live it for a living. So recently we have spoken to a bunch of distribution companies and seen kind of what they want, what kind of movies they want. A lot of them they want horror because horror is very, keeps the feeler. Horror is very. Can you hear that Horror is?
Speaker 6:very much Talking of horrors. I've just walked past. Horrors are happening.
Speaker 2:Walk past our studio. How dare they?
Speaker 8:But yeah, horror is very cheap to make, so a lot of these. And also they're very easy to sell. If you're a horror fan, all you need to do is put some creepy creature on the cover and people will buy that you're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio.
Speaker 6:Riverport Radio obviously, at this time of year, there's lots of talks about film festivals and Oscars and everything, and horrors have been quite prominent in this, haven't they they're talking talking about? I don't think a horror film was actually won the best film award yet, but it could happen soon oh yeah, silence of the Lambs, I think, won the Oscars, as happened before.
Speaker 8:But yes, very, very rare. Yeah, it feels like especially the Oscars seem to ignore horror for some reason a lot of the time, unless you're like a horror plus something else. You know. You know you got the something that they're looking for and there's little elements of horror in the film. I guess you could say science alone.
Speaker 6:It's a horror film based on thriller at the same time. Yeah, I'm not a horror fan myself. I would never have thought Silence land was just a horror film. It's actually more than horror it's like a thriller detective.
Speaker 8:Yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 7:It's got that element it is a horror film yeah, hannibal Lecter in it yeah, exactly, and Blair Witch Project, that was a big one yeah, and that
Speaker 8:was kind of done quite that was done very, very cheap. I've never but I worked with, obviously, budgets lower than that film. I think I was only filming about 15 grand at the time. That was what 90, 90, eight, nine, seven, I think it was.
Speaker 8:Um, and from what I understand how they feel, they didn't have a script for that film. It was just get the three actors, throw them in the woods. They had like a walkie talkie with them so they could talk to them on the occasion. It was like right. So this is what you're doing today. You walk that direction, have a bit of an argument, whatever, whatever, and we'll do some freaky stuff at night time. We won't tell you what they are, just react and film what you can. So I've never made a film like that, but maybe one day I can make a nice low budget film that would blow up and make millions. Another one is Paranormal Activity. That was a film where the director literally just used his own house two actors, a couple of special effects, people. That was made on very low budget and then that sold. Don't know how they do it. I wish I had the luck of those filmmakers, but that's kind of you're on the steps, aren't you?
Speaker 2:Because you're going now, you're looking at distribution and looking at distributors and what they can do for you and so on. So it's kind of climbing the ladder, isn't it?
Speaker 8:Yeah, yeah, to get it out there we were in a little bit of a rut where we would just be focusing on getting like originally it was just get films out, short films out there. Hopefully someone will see it kind of thing, someone that likes it. And we'll hear from somebody who likes the film, maybe want to make a feature or do something with it. But we did that for so many years we've got nothing from it. Then we did the film festival circuit and very similar things. Nice to obviously get audience get to see the film on the big screen, which is amazing. That's one of the biggest payoffs I feel as a filmmaker I can get is seeing it on a big screen. It's with an audience. So you can't get the feel of how other people think, feel towards the film.
Speaker 8:But yeah, we did that for a while and again it was just sort of I don't. This is great, but we're not getting anywhere with it. So this is why, with the feature film, we're now going to basically try and make what we call a marketable film. So it may not be the most passionate project I've ever made, but you talk to them and you sort of figure out what kind of movie they want and that's the kind of movie you make for them, yeah, and hopefully one day that can succeed. We're doing that with the Haunted Heights figure out what kind of movie they want and that's the kind of movie you make for them and hopefully one day that can succeed.
Speaker 8:We're doing that with the Haunted Heist. They gave us the yes to the Haunted Heist. Give me a haunted place and like you know kind of movie. So hopefully, once that's done which I was explaining to Ron just before the podcast that it's been three years since the beginning of making it, since filming. We've started filming that and it will be filmed over eight days, I believe in 2022. And it took a couple of years to just complete the film just the filming of the film as well, not even the post-production editing stuff.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 2:What about music to the films? Who does it?
Speaker 8:We did have a person that used to make all the music for us, which was fantastic. He was great. Unfortunately, he just stopped doing it. But for my recent horror film it was just somebody we found. We put out a what they call a casting call for a music composer and somebody from the United States answered Luckily, they'll do it very, very cheap for us. That's good, that's what we're looking for, but he makes great music, so I'm quite happy with what he achieves.
Speaker 1:I should point out, you're talking to a music composer even as we speak.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're a music lover, that's right. Oh okay, do you?
Speaker 8:make music for film.
Speaker 2:I haven't done, but I've written lots of songs that have been signed up by EMI and Sony and different people.
Speaker 8:Oh, okay, we may need to talk. Yeah, maybe we do you know?
Speaker 2:film music is kind of the direction that interests me as well.
Speaker 1:So have you got any working titles of what you're working on at the moment?
Speaker 8:Well, we've got the Haunted Heist, as I said is that feature and that's a sequel to the Haunted Hall. We do have a film called Dead to Me, which is that's been complete. It's currently doing its film festival run. Actually, tomorrow is the world premiere of the film, again at romford horror. Yeah. So I'm glad it's romford tomorrow. We're going to see that finally on the big screen and that's going to be fantastic. Can't wait for that.
Speaker 8:Um, how long has that been in in production? Uh, that that was filmed last february and it took a while last year, especially finding the music composer. It took a while last year, especially finding the music composer. It took a while because we didn't have one. We found one. He did a great job Because that was really the only thing I needed with the movie for a long time. We found one, done a great job. So it's been completed since late last year and this year he's doing his film festival run. This is the first film festival that it's been shown at, so I'm quite happy about that.
Speaker 8:Just for future films, I've got one which I'm currently in pre-production for. I've wrote the script, just getting things together now called. There's a short film called Payback, which is a short action film. It's completely different, it's not a horror, and I'm hoping to film that in May. My co-producer, lewis he's got a sequel to a film he made called Doll. He's got this doll sinister curse, it's called. That's currently being filmed. I'm the lead in that one. I must say my death in that film is quite horrific. I've died many times on screen. I'm still here somehow. And then, yeah, feature film wise, because that's kind of where our eyes are going to now, because, as I said, we want to get to the point where we're making a living from doing these films. We've got a couple in pre-production but nothing's going to be completed until the Hornet Heist is done. Then we'll be able to focus on another feature film.
Speaker 1:Is that the movie with Scarlett Johansson? Yeah, that's the one, yeah.
Speaker 8:Easily paid her.
Speaker 1:Well, you told me you'd let me know when she was in town.
Speaker 8:I'm sorry you did wrong. I was too busy.
Speaker 1:I've missed out again.
Speaker 6:You say you do everything. Do you do the makeup as well, or do you have a makeup?
Speaker 8:artist. No, yeah, we do have a makeup. We have a couple of makeup artists that we work with all the time. Because presumably if you're dying all sorts of things, then that's I have made. I have done makeup on the rare occasion when we can't get anyone. Never do the extreme gory, bloody stuff, but I need a little bit of prosthetics or anything going on yeah, we've. We've had like people who had gouged out eyes stabbed eyes.
Speaker 6:I can take my right eye out, if you're interested.
Speaker 1:We may use that for the future. Don't do it now. Pull the past out.
Speaker 8:There you go we can use that for the future film. So I know now a composer and somebody that can give us their life. I've got my eye on you.
Speaker 6:There's the name of your next film as well. My eye is on you. The eye just goes around all the time. I literally can turn it to face you, if you wish. How nice.
Speaker 2:All right, so goodbye lunch. Sorry, lads.
Speaker 1:How much the end of this lunchtime show.
Speaker 8:Hopefully the listeners ain't eating at this time. I'm actually into this lunchtime show. I agree with this. It's easy.
Speaker 2:You're listening to Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio.
Speaker 1:Riverport Radio. Well, I just wish you such a lot of luck with this, dan. Thank you, it's great to have you talking about it, particularly with the fact that you're off to Romford tomorrow. Yeah, good luck with this, dan, thank you.
Speaker 2:It's great to have you talking about it, particularly with the fact you're off to Romford tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good luck with that. Good luck with that. You'll have to let us know how you get on.
Speaker 8:As I said, I do want to at some point it's probably when the Hornet Heist is done is get a some sort of event in the Corn and exchange itself and show the haunted hall and the haunted house all filmed in there. So people, yeah, could be in the place where all this stuff happens in the building.
Speaker 1:I'm sure the exchange team would think that was a good idea.
Speaker 8:Yeah, yeah, but it was just as I said, just got to get the feature film done. So once that's done we already my co-producers spoke about it we'll get it in there one night so people can sit there in the hall where all this stuff happens and watch what goes on on the screen. That's a great idea yeah.
Speaker 1:Make a nice evening, a nice St Ives-y type thing to do.
Speaker 8:I just hope there's a bunch of horror fans out there. I'm sure there are. So horror fans, keep an eye out for that well, dan.
Speaker 1:Dan Edtral, thanks very much for today. I'm glad you came in to see us. Brilliant, nice to catch up with you again, absolutely, thanks very much. Thank you very much. Cheers, dan.
Speaker 2:Thank you thank you to play us out. This week we've got the fabulous Connor Selby and a track called Love Letter to the Blues. Thanks for listening and we'll see you all again next time here on Riverport Radio.
Speaker 7:Since I was a little child, I've always felt I don't belong. Everything I try to do Since I was a little child, I've always felt I don't belong. Everything I try to do always seem to turn down wrong. It seemed like like I was born to lose. That's why I'm gonna keep on singing the blues. Ain't got nobody in this world to call my own. I spend my nights crying, crying, all alone. I wanna tell you people, I want to tell you all the truth. I'm gonna keep on singing the blues. There's only one thing that I want. There's only one thing that I need Someone to love me, someone to take care of me. It seems like, no matter how hard I try, I'll never have you. Have you by my side these days, I'm gonna wake up. You know that I'll be old and grey.
Speaker 2:Well, that just about wraps it up for this month's podcast. We hope you've enjoyed listening in and please join us again next time here on Riverport Radio.
Speaker 3:Riverport Radio. Riverport Radio.
Speaker 2:Riverport Radio.
