The Pun

Trading Spaces

By Alethea Kinsela ⋅ April 23, 2007 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Elegant, vintage, rough at the edges, Trades Hall is a venue worth seeing.
This historic building is a labyrinth of passages and stairwells that wind up, down and around and open out onto ornate, carpeted foyers and trendy warehouse spaces.

Like the advertising material in the dank subways of London’s Underground, posters follow the gradient of the stairs, and heavy steel beams hold the roof centimetres from your head. Each step of the main staircase has sunken bowls from the many thousands of feet that have trampled it over the centuries.

There are two late night bars at Trades Hall. Upstairs lies Bella Union Bar, a mess hall style space with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. As the green room comes off this bar, the chances of you rubbing shoulders with some big names are pretty high. This is the hangout of Tripod, Craig Wellington, Ben Payne and Lawrence Leung.

It was in this vibrant watering hole on Friday night that I met John, a jolly punter, and his intoxicated wife, Gwen. I’d already seen two shows that night and my comedy buddy had piked after the second, claiming he was still recovering from a hangover. There was about an hour to wait before the next show began.

John proudly announced that he and his wife had just managed to talk a restaurateur into giving them two free bottles of wine with their dinner. Or so they claimed. He, like many other patrons in the Bella Union Bar, was at the word-slurring stage of inebriation and was grinning like a monkey in a banana plantation.

My initial desire to move as far away from him as possible subsided as he pleasantly gabbled on unselfconsciously and openly about himself and his wife. We three got talking a bit more and eventually I explained that I had to walk around the venue to see more of the place. They leapt up ecstatically to join me in my travels. So off we went.

The smallest theatre at Trades is the TARDIS-inspired Police Public Call Box in the Banner Room, which seats about 20 and is no bigger than a standard kitchen.

In the Banner Room earlier that night, I saw Courteney Hocking: Un-Australian, a witty show combining stand-up with music and visual comedy. I got a real kick out of stepping through the TARDIS door. (As did John, who tried to open the door while there was a show on. Needless to say, he was promptly escorted back to the bar.)

Other theatres are much larger, such as the Quilt Room, where Lawrence Leung explains the excruciating and hilarious stages he’s gone through to become cool. Or there’s Old Council Chambers, which has circular wooden benches lining the walls.

John, Gwen and I moved downstairs to the Banner Room, which houses another bar, the perfect place for a quiet chat or a relaxing pre or post-show drink. Vintage Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence couches and peeling paintwork supply a charming ambiance. With heaters and soft lighting, this trendy hangout has the high-ceiled space of Transport and the downbeat moodiness of St Jeromes.

In fact, the Banner Room could be just about the coolest hangout at the festival. Half the room is sectioned off with heavy, pale curtains. This space is used for shows such as Ben Payne In His Yellow Ute, in which Payne uses’yes, you guessed it’a yellow ute to entertain swaths of small children and their families. (John thought the idea of a yellow ute hilarious; it was a good few minutes before he’d calmed down enough to have another swig of beer.) Jazz and blues music plays unobtrusively. Although the beverages list is limited, what is there is good and reasonably priced.

It was in the Banner Room that John began telling me his life story, which I’m certain would have been fascinating had I been able to interpret what he was actually saying. When I mentioned I’d be seeing Tripod later that evening, he and Gwen decided that they might as well see the act with me, since the only alternative they could come up with was to head to another bar.

The stage at Bella Union Bar upstairs comes to life around 11:30pm for the Midnight Trade @ The Bella Union, with a different act almost every night of the week. On Fridays, Enuff inspire daggy dancing from the audience. Many are conversing at a decibel level well above normal by the time the band walk onstage. What better moment than this to bring in some terrible twanging tunes from the 80s?

That is not to say Enuff aren’t good. They have that rare ability to dress appallingly, play terrible music, and have the audience performing the craziest, most tasteless dance moves imaginable.

The band’s act is fabulous: hot red imitation patent leather pants with leopard print shirts, bleached blonde mullets that challenge the height of the Eureka Tower, and they perform cringe-worthy music with such skill and flair that the audience are on their feet in a matter of seconds.

It’s a sight for sober eyes to see the more enthusiastic audience members putting their reputations on the line for a manic 80s-inspired dance session.

At quarter to midnight, John, Gwen and I went into the New Ballroom to see Tripod: Idioclips, and, although I had nowhere near the blood alcohol level they did, I reckon I laughed just as loudly. A fantastic end to the evening.