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Optical
Busstop and the
Eunuchs
Who are we!
Hi!
Optical Busstop are a loose group of Poets, Writers, Artists, Photographers and Musicians whose
primary base is in Bolton, England. The mainstays of the current
group are Nat Clare and Paul Blackburn who collaborate and perform with a
variety of other artists, poets and musicians.
Originally they were primarily a hybrid hippy/weirdo/musical/visual band formed in January 1971 after an all night party at John &
Lesley Hayes's house in Holly Grove, Bolton. The following day about 12 or so people went down
and played a wildly chaotic set at the hugely innovative Bluesology at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton and the legend was born!
Over the years, the most archetypal line up of the band was: Barry, John, Johnny Kirman, Nat and Paul with Nat and Paul being the main writers. The band played at many gigs across the country, some memorable ones include: Leicester University Arts Festival along side poet John Silkin, Lancaster Arts Festival, Liverpool University Arts week (as "The Flying Bandini Brothers") & Real ale Festival (never again), Bolton Busker, Manchester West Indian Centre with John Cooper Clark as well as too many pubs and clubs to remember. In Bolton their "home" gigs were held at The Gypsy's Tent and later the group performed many times at Bolton's Socialist Club in Wood Street.
Other people involved in the group at various times and in various ways have included: Gill Govan, Lesley Hayes, Pete Middleton, Henry Heap (Deceased - 1949 to 2003), Gloggs, Gary McArdle, Pete Dunleavy, Paul Humphries, Linda Jennings, Mike Syddall, Isobela Freudenberger, Christine Dawson, Pete Crompton, Stella Blackburn and Kevin Bates.
Many of the early memebers of the group were involved in creating and running "Bolton Free Press" an alternative Newspaper of the 1970s. Some were involved in the Bolton Anarchists, CND, other leftist political & pressure groups and the Trade Union movement (when they weren't being drug addled hippies that is).
Nat and Paul, as the "Poor Poets",
instigated a highly successful monthly event
originally called "Mutant Music Hall" but later "Live Friday" which ran for
three years in the early 90s at the Octagon Theatre. There were also two "Live
Friday" specials (at the Pack Horse hotel and the Albert Halls)
which they were asked to mount in two consecutive years as part of the Bolton
Festival, and another special as part of "Poetry Live in the North West".
Out of this came several appearances on the notorious TV programme "The Word" and one of their performances was chosen for a compilation of the programme's best bits. You can see a video of one of the poems they performed on the Poems page on this site.
At some stage Nat and Paul became involved in community theatre, touring locally in the acclaimed play "Will you come o' Sunday Morning" adapted by their friend Les Smith (now a famous playwright) from the work of Allan Clark, music by Nat Clare and directed by Romy Baskerville (a cracking actress who you will have seen on TV in Coronation Street as Ken Barlow's headmistress plus lots of other parts in many, many shows) which celebrated the mass trespass at Winter Hill some 100 years earlier. This was revived in the early years of this century by the Octagon Youth Theatre who used Nat's music and original songs.
Nat enjoyed great acclaim as a singer/songwriter on the folk circuit appearing around the country and on several
local Radio stations. At the same time he was a regular columnist for North West
Folk magazine and worked on a voluntary basis for NW Arts. He also wrote for several TV programmes including
"Not the Nine O'clock News" and particularly "Spitting Image" who used a great
deal of his material. Paul, meanwhile, worked for the Leigh Alternative Workshop
Project (LAMP) and put a great deal of time and effort into developing and
running several Websites.
Over the past few years Nat and Paul have been working producing content for
this site with collaborations and contributions from John Hayes, Barry Ferguson, Scott Devon, Ruks
Badat, Linda Jennings, Mike Syddall, Pete Crompton, Christine Dawson and others. At the same
time they have become increasingly involved in the vibrant Poetry Scene in the
North West performing both together and individually across the North West and
beyond in venues such as Bolton
University and Bolton's Phoenix & Octagon Theatres; Studio Salford;
Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, Urbis, Green Room, Jushua Brooks, The Iguana Bar, the "Lost and found"
Arts Squat and Manchester University's Folk club and Poetry Society; LitaBury
Festival in Bury; The Darnhill festival and the Olde Boars head in Rochdale; The
white Hart in Oldham; The "Barefoot in the park" Festival & The Old
Police Station, Leeds; The Poetry Cafe & The New County Arms Arts Pub in
Preston; Clifton Creative Writing Group Wigan; Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal; Spotlight Club, Lancaster; Everyman Theatre, Liverpool
& Liverpool University; and the International Poetry Festival in
Bordeaux, France. Organised and compered "guerrilla" poetry readings for
National Poetry day at the Central Library, Bolton and organised & performed at
the prestigious Turton High School Media and Arts College, Bolton.
They are involved in local poetry group "Write Out Loud" with Paul being a key member he also runs an eclectic, experimental event called "Riders" which was showcased at the Royal Exchange in Manchester in September 2009. Paul's work has been accepted in several publications over the years the latest of them being Citizen 32 and Scribble Magazines; his poem "Doctor Curio" was not only Write Out Loud's poem of the month in October 2006 but was also that site's first audio offering and he received an award in the Bank Street Writers International Writing Competition 2006 for his story "Viking"; whilst both Nat and Paul have won August and December 2006 Slam Idol Pod Casts with their poems "Sex Bag" and "The policeman in my head". The lyrics to Nat and Paul's classic song "Oh no Rodriguez!" appeared in issue 4 of the Libertines magazine.
After video-recording several performances of themselves and other poets, they recently produced a video for their songs Speedhead & The Exorcist which you can find in the Various Videos section of this site and are working on a video of The Stalker. They are also extremely interested in developing multi-media projects involving video, art, music, puppetry and the spoken word. They hoping to apply for a grant to NW Arts to facilitate these new and exciting developments at some point.
You can book Optical Busstop to compere or perform at your events: email: the_dafties@opticalbusstop.com
Now why not have a look at our Video, Poetry, Songs and Stories
