An evening to celebrate the life and works of Tubby Hayes

On Friday February 5th, Regent Street Cinema is opening its doors to jazz fans everywhere to celebrate the life of multi-instrumentalist Tubby Hayes.

‘A Man in a Hurry’ features exclusive interviews with people who knew, worked and gigged with Tubby, as well as his many and varied fans. The film charts the life and times of perhaps Britain’s greatest jazz exponent.

Among those interviewed are Sir Peter Blake, jazz poet Michael Horovitz, DJs Eddie Piller and Patrick Forge, broadcaster Robert Elms, legendary drummer Spike Wells and Tubby Hayes’ biographer Simon Spillett.

Tubby was a regular face in and around the Soho of the late 50s and the 1960s, performing in The Jazz Couriers with Ronnie Scott from 1957 to early 1959 with his own quartet being the headline act on the opening night of the Ronnie Scott Jazz Club in Gerrard Street in 1959.

A household name in the early 1960s, who performed on iconic film soundtracks to ‘The Italian Job’ and ‘Alfie’, Tubby, due to the rise and rise of pop music and a crippling heroin habit, was almost a forgotten man by his untimely death at 38 in 1973.

The film, which has already been described as a UK version of ‘Searching for the Sugarman’ is narrated by actor Martin Freeman with singer Paul Weller as exec producer.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Tubby Hayes expert and biographer Simon Spillett, and film director Lee Cogswell.

Kickstart your Friday night with live music and DJs in the Regent Street Cinema bar area and really immerse yourself in the world of Tubby Hayes.