17 Aug 2024
From Prime Ministers to pop stars, Time Lords to comedians, they’ve all dropped into a completely fictitious pub for shots, darts and a chinwag with celebrity chef and TV presenter Simon Rimmer.
Some of the stars who have taken a pew in The Park boozer this summer include Gordon Brown, Rick Stein, David Tennant, Mary Berry, Arabella Weir, Stephen Mangan and Philip Glenister.
And now Simon’s bringing the concept to this year’s Pub in the Park St Albans for the first time, with an exciting line-up of guests including Tinie Tempah, Dragon’s Den star Sara Davies and Capital Breakfast host Chris Stark, with more names to be announced closer to the time.
The Sunday Brunch co-presenter, former Strictly contestant and founder of award-winning vegetarian restaurant Greens joined us for an early morning Zoom call to discuss his plans for the event, which takes place in Verulamium Park from September 6-8.
“I’m in a boiling hot hotel room. The air-con is as low as it will go, and it feels like it’s actually cooking me, rather than actually letting me cool down,” he reveals.
Pub in the Park St Albans is the last of a streamlined four events this summer, down from last year’s nine to allow the organisers to put more focus and love into a quality quartet, a change Simon welcomes.
“It’s been lovely just doing four this run, it feels re-energised and everyone’s had the opportunity to properly focus on getting every detail just right.
“I’m involved in all of it, even though it’s not my project, and with anything of that magnitude just the set-up and stripping down is a big old beast, but all of them have been really, really excellent this year.
“St Albans is genuinely always one of the most fun ones. I think that the crowd of St Albans is always different to what we get at Chiswick and at Marlow in particular, which is very, very polite whereas in St Albans everyone is far more up for a party.”
He gives an example of what he’s experienced at previous St Albans events: “There’s the classic story of [fellow chef] James Martin getting fondled non-stop when he was doing the Q&A a few years ago, which I just love as I know he is a man who doesn’t like to be touched.
“There was a gang of fairly inebriated middle-aged women who just kept getting closer and closer to him…”
Simon’s live podcast, Pod in The Park, is a new addition to the festival’s line-up, something he has thoroughly enjoyed: “I put this proposal to Tom [Kerridge] and to [festival directors] Chris “The podcast is based around a celebration of all things about British pubs. We have our pretend pub that we set up in called The Park. So Pod in The Park, see what we did there, incredibly clever, but also so with a bit of luck it has a life outside of Pub in the Park as well.
“We talk about you know what your dream pub would be and things like ‘What was your shit drink when you were young?’ My mate used to drink creme de menthe and lemonade!
“We talk about what you drink now, the best food you’ve had in a pub… We create our dream pub: so what does the outside look like, what does the front door look like, what does it smell like when you go in, what do you want to see behind the bar, what do you want to see on the menu?
“And then everyone gets to pick one tune that will go on to our imaginary jukebox. In fact, at the end of the tour, we’re going to release the playlist, because the tracks that everyone chose have just been amazing. Anything from The Beatles to House of Pain, Aretha Franklin, it’s been really good. And then they play darts, which has been absolutely brilliant.
“[Life on Mars actor] Philip Glenister is in the lead at the moment. He’s on 132, Tom Kerridge is on 9. To put that into context, Mary Berry, who has really, really bad arthritis in her right hand, is on 69. So that tells you how bad Tom is at darts.
“We also have a secret snug, where you get to spend half an hour with somebody, alive or dead, and it’s your time with them.
“You can drink with them, eat with them, pick their brains and it’s just a really nice thing. We’ve had some great people on that, anyone from Alex Ferguson to Tony Blair.”
One of the special guests at the Chiswick event was none than former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, an experience Simon relished.
“We were told by his security before he came on that he’ll have an alcoholic drink in front of him, but he won’t drink and he certainly won’t play darts. So, he had a glass of Champagne, we did shots with him, and he played darts. He was absolutely brilliant.
“Then they said that afterwards, the minute it finishes, we will whisk him away, he won’t stay, but he stayed and had photographs with me, his security was going mental!
“Everyone’s embraced the kind of sort of slightly surreal nature of the fact that we’re in a pretend pub and everybody has told great stories, so it’s felt like a really nice thing to do. The list of guests has been superb, it really has.
“I’m very fortunate, I’ve been doing Sunday Brunch in various forms for 17 years, so I’ve got quite a good little black book and a lot of people that I can reach out to. We’ve worked hard at inviting people in so we’ve ended up with a phenomenal guest list.
“Then obviously anyone that’s at the festival can just walk across. We had two of the boys from McFly who were performing at Reigate on the other week. Rather than the audience seeing them on a big stage at a distance, we end up with a crowd of about 200 and they’re 10 feet away. With Mel C all of these super fans were there and within touching distance of us.
“You know, when you look at it, you go, how on Earth have we got these people to sit in a pretend pub in the middle of a park? I guess it’s something so different from your normal sort of interview format in any TV show or anything similar.
“I think that what we wanted to do, and again, most of the people who have been on Sunday Brunch at some point, they know how I operate, they know that it’s going to be quite laid back and they know it’s going to be fun.
“So there’s nothing to fear, you know what I mean, they’re not going to get caught out, we’re not going to kind of make them do ridiculous things, it’s going to be a nice chat and it’s going to be a little bit daft, and everybody has really, really embraced it, it’s been great.”
Are there any guests he’d particularly like to invite along? “I’d love to have Kate Bush. She never does interviews. She’d be amazing, you know, the thought of just being able to sort of sit and chat to her, it’d be incredible.
“As a massive Liverpool fan I’d love Jürgen Klopp to be on it. I always like politicians. We had Keir Starmer on Sunday Brunch a little while ago before he was PM and I’d quite like him to come along, play darts and do shots. It would follow on from what is now a tradition on Pod in the Park of Labour Prime Ministers actually doing shots and playing darts. It’s kind of what we set out to do,” he jokes.
“I wanted [Saturday Kitchen host] Matt Tebbutt to come on as a guest, but he says he can’t make it. I think he’s afraid!”
Away from Pod in the Park, Simon is looking forward to sampling some of the food produced by his fellow chefs, including Atul Kochhar’s Indian dishes: “He’s my starting point, his food is always good, although this year there’s controversy as he’s not doing his chicken tikka pies, which are one of the greatest things ever invented!
“I always like going to the fire pit, all the barbecue stuff is superb. We’ve been lucky to have Jack Blumenthal’s Ginger Wings, you’ve got to go and try those wings, they’re superb!”
