The Night Out Theatre Restaurant in Horsefair,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, was one of the country's premier cabaret venues throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.''Up the Fire Escape and Through the Kitchens'' pp 137-200 The recollections of Patti Sommers & Tony Jover

Building

The venue was custom built, with interior design by Todd Kingman. A 1400-seat auditorium, with all seats dining, was similar in style to the

Moulin Rouge Moulin Rouge (, ; ) is a cabaret in Paris, on Boulevard de Clichy, at Place Blanche, the intersection of, and terminus of Rue Blanche. In 1889, the Moulin Rouge was co-founded by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller, who also owned the Olympia (Par ...

but more glitzy. The kitchen served an average of 1000 meals per night, six nights a week, and was split into two in later years, with 'Kitchen 2' dealing exclusively with the a-la-carte part of the extensive menu.

History

The venue was owned and operated by Trust House Forte (THF),

Forte Group Forte Group plc was a British hotel and restaurant company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, F ...

later 'Entam Leisure' (part of the Forte Group), then 'First Leisure', which also controlled London's Talk of the Town and The Golden Garter in Manchester. The Night Out first opened in April 1975. The First General Manager was Clive Preston, later succeeded by Paul Lillicrap. In the late 1970s Eddie Gray and Patti Sommers left The Night Out and the venue's musical directorship came under the late Roger Rae. Successive Stage Directors were Dave Goddard, Tony Jover, Cliff Dix and finally Martin Tasker.

Performers

When it opened in 1975 the venue had a house band under Eddie Gray with lead singer Patti Sommers. The first headline act to appear was Dana. The original resident group was Moonlight, followed by Misty Morning, Delta Dawn, and finally Dinsdale from 1978 through to the end. The first resident compere was Scott Paul Young, who was followed by Ricki Disoni, and Frank Patterson. The venue featured a range of major star artists during its existence, had

Princess Anne Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950) is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of King ...

in its audience on one occasion, was the host venue for the 1981 Eurovision broadcast of

Miss Europe Miss Europe is a beauty pageant for women from all over Europe. It was established in February 1927 by , the European distributor of Paramount, as a one-off event where the winner was to star in a film directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. A ...

and provided a nightly 'five hours non-stop show'. The nightly 'House Show' which preceded the top of the bill act was staged and choreographed by Jean Clarke and produced by David Wiseman but was eventually scrapped in a cost-cutting exercise that finally led to the venue becoming a disco (The Dome). Notable performers included:-

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Night Out Theatre Restaurant Nightclubs in Birmingham, West Midlands