... Blackpool's Jenks closes BLACKPOOL'S only independent music venue has closed. Jenks Bar, on North Promenade, opposite the Metropole Hotel, has shut up shop after negotiations to renew its lease collapsed, says operator Trevor Robbins. Originally scheduled to open in December 1 989 on a short term nine month lease, with the option on a longer stay, a series of setbacks delayed the venue's ...

... Morleys in charge By BRIAN ATTWOOD ERIC and Julia Morley are back in sole charge of the Miss World contest after the company split this week from top local broadcaster Piccadilly Radio. Miss World joined forces with Piccadilly to form Trans World Communications when business was booming in 1 988 and the show was valued at almost £9 million. But two years without an appear ance on British ...

... Rhy1 Gaiety gets more time RHYL variety theatre, the Gaiety, has been granted a nine month stay of execution after developers announced that they are to stall demolition work until the autumn. Dorset leisure group Sea Life Centre (Holdings) Ltd plans to build a £1.5 million aquarium complex on the site 80-year-old venue Britain's last remaining concert party style theatre. Co-partners in the ...

... Women queue up for an eyeful WOMEN from all over South Wales arc queuing up for an eyeful of the American all-male strip act The Chippendales. Eight shows at Sawas Club in Usk were sold out within 48 hours of tickets going on sale, with hundreds of block bookings by groups of women. The act 18 hunky men who sing, dance and strip off to next-to-nothing has taken America by storm, starring in ...

... Sun set to shine in Skegness By HELEN GOULD SKEGNESS entertainment bosses are anticipating a boom year in 1991 despite a nationwide drop in audiences which was reported to have hit Britain's coastal resorts last summer. The trend prompted an in-depth local authority review of entertainment at Yorkshire's East Coast resorts this autumn. With the Audit Commission report into council arts ...

... Great escape for magician after motorway crash By STAGE REPORTER MAGICIAN Tom Orchante turned escapologist for his first act of the New Year and miraculously cheated death after a horrific motorway car crash. Orchante and his assis tant Cleo, alias Debbie Hardy, were travelling back from a New Year's Eve gig to Doncaster in the early hours of 1991 when their Ford Sierra hit black ice on the ...

... Thugs threaten pickpocket's career By GEORGE DEARSLEY EVIL thugs are threatening to wreck the career of top stage and TV pickpocket Mark Raffles by slipping broken glass into his pockets. Mark, one of the country's leading 'dips' after 50 years in showbiz, said: It's getting terrible. It is happening all the time nowadays. I have been afraid tb speak out before now because I don't want to ...

... Locals' fury as gay weekend goes ahead By HELEN GOULD FURIOUS Skegness townsfolk have failed to bar 3,500 gay revellers from a weekend of international cabaret at Butlins holiday camp which they claim would tarnish the image of the town as a family seaside resort. ine lirst ever UK gay weeKenaer will be launched at Funcoast World in March with a star line-up featuring liartha Kitt, the Bay ...

... Musicians lead march to stop war in the Gulf X BILLY Bragg and Tom Robinson have volunteered to lead a peace march in London this week aimed at calling on the politicians to end the threat of an immi nent Gulf war. The pair, both veteran sup porters of nuclear disarmament, will headline a rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday January 12. Joining them will be Labour MPs Tony Benn and Bcrnie ...

... First Leisure stays ahead with bumper year of profits LORD Delfont's First Leisure corporation kept its place as a market leader in the light entertainment industry with another year of bumper profits, writes Brian Attwood. Ill Figures for the 12 months to I October 3 1 show the group managed HI a pre-tax profit of almost £10 million III a rise of 16 per cent over the previous year. Commenting ...

... US performers stay away STAYAWAY American stars who cancel tour dates to Britain and Europe because of the Gulf War ought to follow the example of veteran artists Glen Campbell and Billie-Jo Spears, says a top British promoter. Many younger US singers are refusing to appear on this side of the Atlantic for fear of terrorist reprisals in revenge for the Allied attack on Saddam Hussein's forces ...

... Activists aim to stop circus ANIMAL activists are urging companies to boycott Blackpool's biggest hotel in a bid to stop it staging animal circuses. The Blackpool-based Internat ional Animal Welfare Alliance has already written to the Norbrcck Castle Hotel warning manage ment of its intentions. But a hotel chief says he won't bow to threats and has warned that the alliance's action could harm ...