Downtown Pompey look back on Joanna's, Ritzy, Martha's and more in new show about 1980s nightclubbing - Sticky Floors and Palm Trees

Company co-founder Josh Breach, aka The Fabulous Josh, was on holiday with their mum Tracie, chatting away about Portsmouth nightclubs from days gone by – in particular Joanna’s which was opposite South Parade Pier until it closed in 2004.

"This woman turned around and said: ‘Excuse me, are you from Portsmouth?’ We were a bit wary, sort of, ‘Yeah, why are you asking?’ And she said: ‘Because I went to those nightclubs as well’, and then they both said in tandem: ‘The sticky floors and the palm trees!’

“All of a sudden a connection was built from that one interaction and there was something there – it immediately made me think, there's something we can do with this...

“It was this idea of nostalgia and memory which created a conversation between two people which would never have happened otherwise.”

Downtown Pompey, which is based at New Theatre Royal, is a theatre company which aims to bring communities together through queer art practices.

It’s taken five years since that chance encounter in Greece, but their next show, Sticky Floors and Palm Trees is at New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth from January 30-February 1. They are billing it as a “brand new original piece of heritage theatre that examines the humanity, complexity and community of pubbing and clubbing in 80s Pompey,” in an immersive and interactive experience.

Drawing on interviews with people’s recollections of Joanna’s, plus Nero’s, Martha’s, Time and Envy, and other long gone night spots, the show weaves them together as an act of collecting social history.

Courtnee Mitchell, Downtown Pompey’s assistant creative producer, helped conduct some of those interviews. She says: “It's been really interesting learning about this. I'm from Reading, so I don't know any of these clubs. I came here for uni, so I was here for the heyday of Guildhall Walk, but all of the Southsea clubs had already gone.

“I did a lot of the interviews over the summer, talking to people and getting their stories for the show, so it's been really fascinating learning about these places that are now retirement homes – or just nothing.” The derelict clubbing complex which housed Joanna’s burnt down in 2011 and the site was levelled later that year.

“The dynamic that used to exist along that seafront, and there was the fact that every person had a different club that they went to throughout the night, but they all ended up at Joanna's. They all congregated there because no matter how drunk you were, how sloppy, or in your work uniform, you could still get in. They'd let you in no matter what!

The 32-year-old adds: “I think I would have gone – it sounds like it was a right laugh! I'm not sure about losing my shows on the dancefloor, but as one of our participants said: ‘The booze was always clean and you could always have a good time’, so why wouldn't you want to go?”

Compared to 20 or more years ago, there are less nightclubs across the city.

“I went out for the first time to Hampshire Boulevard for the first time since pre-lockdown times and I felt like I was verging on elderly!” says Courtnee, “but it was a good time and it does really show how we're lacking these spaces and places for people to connect to – to dance, to share music and the experience. If I wanted to go out now, I don't know where I'd go, and people older than me still want to go out and dance.

“We're hoping that having this rejuvenation of Joanna's will give people that sense, even if it's only for the night, to recapture their youth and experience it again.

“We're also looking forward and how we can do better in the future and how do we all work together to create this space that we've all lost?

“All of the different groups in the city have lost space – like the alternative nights have been reduced, the queer locations have gone, we've all lost stuff. Why can't we all come together, start something new and find something fresh?”

The show aims to tap into something Josh puts at the heart of Downtown Pompey’s work. “Since we've been in the New theatre Royal, it's been an aim of mine to bring new audiences into the theatre. When I was thinking about how we could bring people from Portsmouth more into the space and get more involved in the space – and here it was through the nostalgia of the clubbing.

“I've got a background in running nightclubs and cabaret, so bringing that in as well meant there was a beautiful bridge created where we could use our experiences of nightclubs to bring in those audiences where they can get that spark.

“When I was growing up I wasn't proud to be from Portsmouth – it's somewhere I've had to learn to love, and it's through stuff like this and the stories of the people from Portsmouth and all the stuff we do as a city that makes me think, actually there's some really beautiful queerness within that which means we can bring everyone and everything together.

“This show is starting to be emblematic of that – we can use that queer experience to be able to build relationships and communicate with everyone.”

Josh approached Portsmouth Museum – which had objects, including furniture, from the closed nightclubs, used Pompey pop historian Mick Cooper’s website and they started finding people to speak to.

“You only have to go on Facebook to see the amount of likes and stories and conversations that people are having about 80s clubbing,” says Josh. “It wasn't hard to stimulate that interaction. We've pitched up at markets, we've been at the museum, we've interviewed people one-to-one and it's just been a really beautiful way to create picture of what it looked like.

"It wasn't difficult to get people to chat about it because people want to talk about it.”

While the show looks into the stories behind the myths and legends about these lost spaces, it also seeks to put the experience into a wider context.

“When we talk about this, it's not just about Joanna's, it's about a whole culture that seems to have just been eradicated – what we explore in the show is this idea of ‘why?’ Is it strategic? Is it just time? Is it because people aren't interested any more? Is it economic? There are so many reasons as to why that change has been navigated. We don't come up with any answers but we present the reasons why.

“For me, it's about that heritage. We talk a lot about those cis white men like Henry VIII and Admiral Lord Nelson, but what about everyone else? What about the social history of the city? And something like Joanna's – it's 20 years of closure next year – if we don't collect those stories and use this material, where's it going to go and who's going to take it? If we don't do it, it's going to be lost.

“This show is the basis of work that we're developing which is not just about this show, but a larger heritage project about understanding the social history of Portsmouth. This show is starting to dig around that. There's so much out there, we just need the right tools to be able to do it. This show will be the conduit for that work...”

For tickets go to newtheatreroyal.com.

Meet Denise...

Renowned Portsmouth drag queen Cherry Liquor is one of the performers in Sticky Floors... A long-time friend of Josh’s, it is her first time in a Downtown Pompey project.

She says: “Josh told me about this project he had coming up and I thought it sounded different to what I do in my style of drag and it sounded challenging, so I was like: ‘Let's do it!’

Cherry plays a character called Denise: “She's an alcoholic and from what I get, she’s really well known in the clubs. She's a staple of these sorts of places. She's the sort of person who everyone knows – 'there she is again', she's out most nights. She’s like a friendly face on the scene, which I guess I kind of am. I'd say I've been typecast, but I'm not an alcoholic.

"Now when I go out I feel really old and there's younger people on the scene who call me ‘nan’ – I'm not that old! “ she laughs. “When I used to go out and look at some people and think, ooh, you're a bit old to be out – that's me now!”

Like many involved in the show, Cherry never experienced these clubs first-hand.

"I remember my parents talking about these places, and my older brother used to go, but I didn't ever go myself.”

Courtnee adds: “Denise is a good-time girl, she knows how to go out and have fun, which is obviously Cherry's whole vibe. She's out, she's here, she's ready to have a laugh – and that's what the characters are, we've drawn on these archetypes.”