Harbour Hotel Cabaret File LD/3B — after the Pavilion altercation
OVERVIEW | LIVE AT THE DOME | MARINE PAVILION AFTERLIFE | INCIDENT FILE 005
The Grand Burstin Hotel stands on Marine Parade by Folkestone harbour, on the site associated with the earlier Royal Pavilion Hotel. The modern hotel opened in the 1970s and became part of the harbour’s mass-holiday landscape: coach parties, cabaret, dining rooms and sea-facing leisure.
Its show material belongs to the same seafront entertainment ecology as the Marine Pavilion and Rotunda: not the same venue, but close enough for the Bear to claim continuity whenever convenient.
The Bear papers state that he moved to the Burstin “after an altercation” at the Marine Pavilion. The altercation is not described as a fight and should not be upgraded into one. The surviving phrase is “a disagreement concerning wings, chorus order and the freezer.”
His argument was simple: if the Marine Pavilion had declined to continue the engagement, the harbour hotel could inherit it by proximity. He called this “over-the-road continuity.” The Burstin file calls it “not booked.”
The hotel setting changed the act. The Bear’s seaside showmanship became coach-party cabaret: shorter carpet, brighter dining-room lighting, and a great deal more soup. He retained the microphone, the white straps and the demand for one more encore.
The later “Do Not Feed the Bear” notice makes the decline plainer. What had begun as a novelty cabaret booking had become a staff warning about drink, complaints and pub barring, with the Mariner’s Pub incident folded into the hotel’s cautionary paperwork.
BURSTIN CONTEXT
| Position | Listed / remembered item | Bear addition |
|---|---|---|
| Arrival | Coach party seated for evening meal. | Bear reports to reception as “cabaret.” |
| Warm-up | International cabaret act and hotel entertainment. | Bear places microphone at dining-room edge. |
| Main interruption | Programme continues. | Widecombe Fair, incomplete due to soup service. |
| Exit | Professional calm from staff. | Revolving door treated as encore opportunity. |
The Burstin phase marks the Bear’s slide from summer-show attraction to hotel interruption. It is still cabaret, technically; but cabaret with a receipt printer, a luggage trolley and a receptionist who has seen worse.
NO RE-ENTRY For the formal barring record, see Grand Burstin Hotel — Bear Incident File 005.