Gil Helmick’s idea for a weekly radio show is sort of hard to describe.

If one were pitching it to Hollywood studio heads, they might say it’s “A Prairie Home Companion” meets “Cheers” meets “Norma Rae.”

The show, “Club 86,” will center on characters hanging out in a bar in a mill town — Lewiston, to be specific. The storyline focuses on the bar patrons’ lives and struggles in a changing economy and a changing world. The “Prairie Home Companion” reference comes in because the show will also feature weekly big-name musical guests.

Helmick has already lined up Charles Neville, sax player for the legendary New Orleans funk-jazz group The Neville Brothers, to be the first guest.

People can see for themselves what the idea is all about, because a live version of the show’s pilot episode will be performed Saturday at Space in Portland. Neville will play, and a company of actors will perform the pilot.

“We want to go at this with humor and love, but we also want to periodically bend into the dramatic, touch on some sobering issues that resonate with a lot of people,” said Helmick, 64, a longtime writer whose work includes novels and spoken-word performances with musicians from around the world.

While Helmick and the other folks who have created the radio show hope to get it picked up by a radio network, there’s no guarantee that will happen. But just the fact that Helmick was able to get someone like Neville to be on it demonstrates that he knows a lot of people in the entertainment business.

Neville said he is appearing on the show basically because Helmick asked him. He met Helmick years ago in New Orleans, and has performed with him. He also worked with Helmick on a project in New Orleans aimed at stopping reckless gun use.

“I’m making a special trip up there to do the show, but I do have a quartet I work with when I’m in New England, so they’ll be there,” said Neville, 73. “I’ve known Gil a long time, and I’m happy to be working with him again.”

There were some 20 or more people involved in recording the pilot episode. The live show will feature a performance of the pilot, plus music by Neville and his group, jazz music by The Club 86 Ensemble and a spoken-word performance by Helmick.

“Club 86” is supposed to be a bar where the old financial base of the town — manufacturing — has collapsed. So over the years, the town’s affordable real estate and fairly rural location has attracted a whole new crop of residents. Now the bar is run by someone “from away” while many of the patrons are natives.

Although Helmick himself uses “A Prairie Home Companion” as a point of comparison for “Club 86,” there are important differences.

“We all have great respect for that show,” said Helmick. “The difference is that ‘Prairie Home Companion’ is a variety show but ours is a serial with a running narrative.”

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com