Entertainment GUIDE
Comedy Night
Rum Diary
Diamond Live Lounge, Wood St, DN! 3LH 25th October 2014
No.7 @ The Rum Rooms, 7 Market Road, DN1 1LS
It’s comedy with the Jongleurs On The Road and the venue is sold out, with around a 100 people sitting at perfectly arranged tables in this atmospheric venue, a former Victorian church on Wood Street. There’s a mixture of people here. It’s a different offer to the usual Saturday night crowd in Doncaster. Later on tonight there’s a funk and soul night, with live music and DJs, and there’ll be dancing till the early hours. You can’t help but feel things are changing for Doncaster’s nightlife, that people want something different to the usual booze-fuelled pub crawl. After speaking with proprietor Dominic Gibbs, it’s clear he wants Diamond Live Lounge to become known as a premier venue, not just a gig venue. On Sunday there’s a wedding fair followed by a metal night. Dominic laughs, “They’ll be kids moshing”. During the day the venue is a coffee shop hosting conferences and networking events. Dominic wants the venue to offer a diverse range of events and there is an open door policy to collaborate and support up-and-coming businesses, music promoters and event organisers. There’s some great gigs on the horizon too. The Dunwells play here on 21st November. They’re making big headlines in the US as well as across the UK and Europe. For those of a 80s and 90s vintage, chart-topping band Toploader (6th Dec) and Go West (20th Feb) are selling out fast. Diamond is a venue with lots of potential. If you’ve not checked it out yet, you should. www.diamondlivelounge.com @DiamondLiveDN1 Hayley Smith (photo The First 45 ©2014)
It’s 9pm and we can hardly get through the door as we enter No.7 @ The Rum Rooms on Market Road in Doncaster. The Races are on - that’s horse racing, for those out of town reading this the ladies are dressed up to the nines and the fellas are suited and booted. We find out the restaurant is still open but it’s fully booked. We manage to sneak a look. It’s small but perfect for an intimate candle-lit social. The walls are covered with artwork in a salon exhibition style, and there’s an exhibition of paintings by a local artist. You can expect a number quality of acts here, from jazz on Thursdays with Carney and the Cat to James Taplin with his awesome power notes. This Saturday there’s a vocalist and guitarist doing covers and although we’d like to hear original material, it seems to be going down well with the races crowd. Later we notice three glamorous ladies drinking out of metal teacups. At first we think they’ve snuck in their own drinks, before noticing there’s a tea pot too. I decide to ask them what it’s all about. The girls look at me, perplexed. I’m not sure if they want to lamp me for disrupting them, but in the next breath all three are offering me a slurp like we’ve been friends for ten years. Two words - Donny charm. The drink tastes strong, with fresh fruit and mint. I discover it’s the new Cuban Teapot Cocktail. A few teacups of this brew and you’ll be sailing. In fact I think these Donny lasses were well on their way. If you’ve not been out in Doncaster recently, you should check out No.7 @ The Rum Rooms. It shows that there’s a change in the air for Doncaster’s food culture and nightlife, and we highly recommend it. Catkin Jaquiem (and friends) (photo Warren Draper ©2014)
35