A Weekend in the City Part 1: comedy at the Bedford in Balham

Having written what you’ve read so far in next to no time at all, it was a while before I was able to pick up where I’d left off. Not a bad thing in a way as it goes to back up the reason for doing this in the first place. The day job and general day-to-day stuff meant that the time to sit and write hadn’t been there. If you were to ask most people in London why they don’t get more out of living here, time, along with money will be among the most common reasons, however part of the point of this book was to show that neither have to stand in the way of discovering what can be done here with a bit of research and imagination. An old school friend came down from Newcastle, and the weekend of his visit was a case in point.

With nothing planned for a Friday night, the tried and tested method of searching the What’s On list on the
Time Out website through up a comedy night at the
Bedford in Balham, a pub which is far from being my local but is within easy reach on the train. The Banana Cabaret has been running for over twenty-five years, and, alongside live music, a gallery, dance classes and club nights, makes this far more than your average boozer.

Originally a hotel in the 1830s, the Bedford has been the main community hub of this part of South London ever since. A spit and sawdust gig venue during the sixties and seventies, the pub boasts early shows for
The Clash and
U2 on its CV of famous nights.

The ballroom upstairs, formerly the billiard hall, was the location for an infamous event of a very different kind, as it was used as the courtroom for the unsolved case of the death of Lawyer Charles Bravo in 1876, murdered by poisoning in a nearby elite Victorian household called The Priory.

His wealthy wife Florence had previously been married, in 1864, to Algernon Lewis Ricardo, son of MP John Ricardo, but had been separated from her first husband because of his affairs and violent alcoholism. She in turn had had an extramarital affair of her own, with a much older bloke, Dr James Mandy Gully, a fashionable society doctor who was also married at the time, and she had fallen out of favour with her family and society. Just think of the fun a 19th century version of The Evening Standard would have had getting stuck into this cat’s complicated love life. Ricardo died in 1871 and Florence married Charles, a respected up and coming barrister in December 1875, terminating her affair with Gully.

The fun and games didn’t stop there however, as four months into a stormy marriage, Charles was mysteriously poisoned. Police enquiries in the case revealed Charles's behaviour towards his wife as being controlling, mean and violent. The relationship was unbalanced where power was concerned, as Florence was the wealthier of the pair. Being no fool she had held onto her own money under a new law introduced in England under the Married Women’s Property Act 1870, and this led, as you might imagine, to tension between the pair. Our friend Charlie the legal eagle can’t have been too thrilled at being played at his own game.

Although the case held at the Bedford was ultimately unsolved, plenty of theories have been put forward as to how the poisoning could have happened. One such suggestion is that, in an attempt to get his hands on his wife’s cash, Bravo was slowly poisoning her with small doses of antimony; she was suffering from another illness at the time. In one of those, clumsy pick up the wrong bottle in the bathroom incidents, what he thought was laudanum for toothache turned out to be something rather more serious, certainly putting into perspective the hair die instead of shower gel screw up people have been known to make.

Suspicion was aroused further when, while being visited by doctors during his final days, at no point did he speak of how the poisoning might have happened. The housekeeper Mrs. Cox reportedly told police Charles admitted using the poison on himself when they were alone together, although she later changed that story in the dock to deflect suspicion towards Florence. The housekeeper had also been suspected of causing the death, for she had been threatened with the sack.

On this particular Friday night the historic courtroom location hosted TV and radio presenter
Paul Tonkinson (The Big Breakfast, X FM), Ian Stone who is a regular on the festival circuit, plus a blind bloke and a shockingly unfunny woman (the names of both escape me), meaning it was a mixed bag, but considerably better than anything Friday night TV can offer.

Although plenty of pubs, bars and cafes have either been taken over by chains, many a drinking venue in the capital has a wonderfully intriguing past, the Bedford is certainly one of my favourite places this side of Central London for both the story behind the place and what you get if you turn up now, and is well worth a visit if you’re at a loose end.

*Source of historical stuff is the Bedford’s website*