The Bunny is back.

Club Smooch Backstage

Ok, I realise I have been a little quiet as of late but that's only because I've been hard at work creating my first true comedy act.

I always have a couple of pages of act ideas at all times and picking ones I want to work on is so hard because I want to do them all! But I must stick by my own mantra of less acts, better quality.

Last time I was in town before a Club Smooch after my sound check and run through I popped out to pick up some false eyelashes. It just so happened that the local costume shop was having a sale of it's ex rental costumes. I wasn't expecting to find anything but I had a bit of a snoop amongst the rails and found a scraggy looking bunny costume.

I've always wanted to go to Halloween dressed in a big fluffy bear outfit, if only so I could run up to people and cuddle them like an overgrown teddy bear. So I was drawn to the bedraggled looking bunny. I managed to talk them down from the overambitious pricing and left the store with a new act in the bag. Well not quite, but you get the picture.

Music was the next stumbling block. I knew I wanted to use Run Rabbit Run, simply for the fact that the cheeriness of it would juxtapose so nicely against what I was going to do to this poor little bunny. But how to finish it.

A chance evening in with nothing to watch but 'Top 100 sexiest music videos' was to be my saviour. Never mind thatthe woman co-hosting sounded like she should have been on one of those ads that crop up at about 1:30am. You know the ones I'm talking about, 'Sexy girls in your neighbourhood are just waiting for YOUR call.' Nonetheless, I found myself tapping my toes to a completely over the top pop/hip hop song and voila! I had my music.

The process was a lot of fun for me. More acting than dancing, it was just a bit of silly fun. I could never have predicted just how much the audience at Club Smooch was going to love it. The reaction was overwhelming. I often have people come up to me after a show to say they liked the act, etc. This time I had people copying the bunny moves!

Speaking of Club Smooch, all puns aside, the Halloween event was a hell of a night! I also performed my La Belle Femme en Rouge act which was the complete opposite of Rabbit Pie. It's a 30s jazz era fan dance with an exquisite costume from Curve Couture. You can see it here where Vanessa, our Club Smooch maid has snapped me backstage waiting to go on.


Chrissie (boss lady at Curve Couture) also had a fashion show during Club Smooch. Her fashion shows are never ordinary and although I saw them rehearsing and had a little peek from behind the curtain backstage I didn't get to see the full show until I was going through the footage from the show with Bob on Saturday. Wow! It was very, very sexy.

In fact, on the Halloween night I was onstage no less than 4 times! We all got out on stage for a boogie to one of Trixy Vixens songs Moloko, and I was also part of the Club Smooch Troupe. It reminded me of all the things I miss about theatre. In particular a nice Sunday roast before rehearsals!

A little midnight magic

Well that's not where my weekend ended. Oh no.



Friday I went into Chrissie's studio for another fitting of the new costume for the relaunch of my Red Angel act. The process of creating a costume is a strange one. From the image I created while curled up in front of a film one night, the idea has sprung forth into reality and each week it gets closer to realisation. Quite amazing really.




Chrissie and I have also had to play around with the original idea as a picture you have in your head is not always possible given the laws of physics. Additionally the 1930s dress design I found and an original 1920s pattern with the most beautiful back line that Chrissie found had to be tweaked and combined to create something that suited the needs of the act, and my figure.


I am a curvy girl and as much as I have willowy Coco Chanel fantasies, the 20s dropped waistlines make me look like a hippo. The 1930s silver screen style is much better suited to my frame and looks far more elegant on me. It is all about understanding your own shape.




I grew up in a very large family and my mother had 3 sisters. One for each season you might say, and quite interestingly as far as complexions go, they were. If you've never had a season colour analysis of your skin, do one...now...Google it! Some say this is old fashioned but it has never, ever let me down and if you are wondering, I am a Winter.




Each sister is a different season and each dresses with such style. Add to that a myriad of female cousins and I had a perfect base for learning how to dress to suit myself. When other girls my age were reading Dolly or Girlfriend, I have memories of scouring the pages of Vogue in my aunt's living room.




I can't say that I dress with Glamour all the time as I love a pair of jeans and hoodie as much as the next girl, but style I can do.




The same day I also had a meeting with a friend about my new showreel. We met some time ago when I first performed for the Burlesque Against Breast Cancer folks and he shot a little film of one of my acts. We met for coffee to discuss the film shortly after and ever since we've met up every now and then to discuss performances.




Affectionately known as Bob by the Burlesque crowd, he always has some excellent insights and ideas on my acts and it's so nice to be able to discuss them in such a focused way. I feel like I must drive BW crazy sometimes as I'm so burlesque obsessed my nearly every thought is related to act ideas, costumes, vintage, other shows and performers, and so on.




I also think I can take the credit for introducing Bob to cupcakes (don't tell his sister!), when the cafe at Waterstones was full and I was craving a sugar hit. So I took him down to Angel Food Bakery on Meeting House lane which went down a treat.



Bea DeVile, who shares my obsession for cupcakes, had introduced me to this cute little shop which is now one of my favourite places in Brighton. She now regularly tortures me by sending me links to anything cupcake related (did you know you can get cupcakes delivered, like pizza!). Something about their daintiness makes them so incredibly desirable to girls who like pretty things.




Anyway, I'm getting distracted again. The new showreel is quite a nice step for me. Naturally I can't help but pick my own performances to pieces, but any decent performer does. Bob filmed the two acts I did at Club Smooch in September which we've combined and will post on the website shortly under Film. An additional 'teaser' (so to speak!) trailer will go up in a few months time when we've filmed all my acts.




A showreel, along with a website and some good recommendations, is a key part of any performers arsenal, particularly to send to promoters who haven't seen or heard of you yet as it can be difficult to tell a teaseur just from their pictures.



So onward into the night. The day is not over but I will continue the story later... Bonsoir!

Full Moon

I promised a next day installment and this time I'm delivering!

After Club Smooch I was itching to get back on the stage. Particularly after seeing so many good friends. I told you Danny was there but did I mention Chrissie of Curve Couture was in the audience?

She shot backstage to wish us all luck or break a leg and I'm amazed she managed it up the stairs in her gorgeously high red sparkly shoes! I'm always surprised by how many neck-breakingly steep stairs are in most backstage areas. I suppose it adds to the thrill! I was pleased that she got to see her Curve Couture masterpiece onstage, and don't worry, I will put pictures up as soon as I get my hot little hands on them.

So Thursday night I was back in Hastings for Burlesk! Cabaret Carnivale. I had such a great time last time I was there I was so pleased to be back. Hastings is only just up the coast from Brighton and a very cruisy train journey had me there in no time. As I've perfected the art of 'On train make-up application' I only had my hair and a bit of glittering to do when I got there.

Ah yes, it's a glamorous life. I can even put on false eyelashes on the train. I'm not quite sure what my fellow train goers think of me, but I've long since stopped caring if it saves me a half hour at home!

Lady Severine who runs the night was the spectacular ring master for the night resplendent in her top hat and hands down the best chest in burlesque. We actually had a bit of time for a chat over a glass of wine and the curling tongs which was nice for a change from frantic preparations. Most excitingly it looks like I'll be back for their Christmas show as well!

Miss Glory Pearl was on in the first half which I was excited about as we really hadn't seen each other since the London Burlesque festival. She performed her Sally Poles routine which I managed to catch from the window in the dressing room while getting dressed. I was concerned that I was going to either burn my hair or knock over the spotlight which was set up in the window so I only caught a few pole tricks, but it was looking pretty good to me!

On in the second half was Honour Mission, another Brighton lass who also happened to be at the Club Smooch show with me the week before. She was on right before me doing her stompingly good 50 foot woman act so I didn't see her act but I could hear it just fine. Those buildings don't stand a chance! Honour Mission, if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, is the very definition of an Amazon. Quite a woman.

After catching the end of Domino's act (fabulous as usual) and having a brief chat with the other performers we had to dash, but not before I had a chance to speak with Sinan Bozkurt.

Sin has done most of the pictures from Burlesk! that I have on my website and excepting that he's also a very sweet man. I had just enough time to discuss a possible photo shoot and to take a few pictures after the show (see above).

Gosh, how lucky was I to get a lift home with Honour! To be delivered to my door is a very rare luxury which I enjoyed immensely as we laughed all the way home, Honour, myself and her 'roadie' her very kind friend who was doing the driving.

One thing that did get mentioned was the Burlesque Against Breast Cancer blogs, which at times feature my own blog entries. I won't go into it now except to say that after sharing some stories with Honour I will be writing a special blog about my family's brush with Cancer. I believe Honour has bravely done so as well and after hearing her story in the car on the way home it made me think how many incredible stories must be out there.

So I'll leave you here where I lay my weary head to rest before another day of the burlesque business, and as I'm managing to keep my promises these days I might even promise to update a pic or two to my blog.

See you in the morning!

The Isle of Style

I remember as a child being told that when you get older time starts to race. Of course at the time I thought it was the usual rubbish thing that grown ups would say to placate you when you're bored. If only I had realised how true it was!

It's been a couple of weeks since my last bit of backstage chatter and life gets infinitely more frenetic with every passing week.

The performance crowd are a superstitious lot by history. All that 'Break a leg' sort of stuff. Some performers find that certain things happen at the same nights over and over again. For example they may always have trouble with one of their acts at a certain night or their music never works properly at another, and so on.

I may very well be doomed to leave something behind every time I work one of DJ Suave's nights! The first time when it was Annie's Bar Burlesque it was my CD wallet with all my precious music, this time it was at The Glitter Room two weeks ago.

Not only did I leave my CD wallet but half my costume! I was in such a rush to make my train home I didn't even realise till Honey Wilde called me.
Honey, 'Hon, are you missing something?'
Me, 'Oh S***, my music!'.
Honey, '...and your bra, and your dress!'

Honestly, leaving things behind can be an expensive mistake to make. Thankfully the lovely Honey posted them back to me first class in time for my next gig!

Last weekend I had all the luck to be performing at the Isle of Wight's 'The Cream Tease'. Oh how I love a big beautiful stage! The very cute Lady Catalina and Stuart run this very professional night. If you are bound for the Isle of Style or are lucky enough to live there I would urge you to make a point of searching it out. Top class performers in a fabulous venue make for a very, very good show.

I met the Darlings Divine: Miss Cherry Pop and Miss Fan-Teasy, saw Banbury Cross again (we performed the week earlier at The Glitter Room) and The Divine Miss Em who I met back when Glitter Room was Annie's Bar Burlesque! We all sweltered away in the dressing room as we primped and preened, discussed Colleen in the latest goss mag and the merits of latex clothing, and avoided costuming up until the last minute to avoid decidedly unglamorous sweatiness and bra marks.

I had such a fabulous time I have my fingers crossed to perform there again soon, although next time I intend on staying the night in one of the sweet B&Bs nearby and really enjoying the Isle. The shame of travelling for work is that I don't often get to see much of the surroundings! If you have any suggestions of what to see when I'm there next then by all means drop me a message.

It was the virgin flight of my revamped costume for Na Touche Pas and from the audiences response I can only imagine it was a great success.

Speaking of costumes, you might have noticed recently that there has been a little change to my website. There is an exciting new tab at the bottom of the menu. 'Whatever is this tab for?' I hear you ask.

Well, over the next few months you will begin to see newer and more fabulous costumes than you've seen from me before, and you know I already love a little Razzle, Dazzle. It's all due to my collaboration with the Curve Couture label. Chrissie Nicholson-Wilde is the talented designer behind the label and her skill as a costumier has me very excited!

Ladies...she has a talent for making THE most flattering shapes to grace a woman's curves and makes exceptional occasion wear, wedding gowns and corsets so make sure to click on the Curve Couture tab and see what it's all about. Naturally I will have pictures of my new costumes up as soon as humanly possible!

I have to say I'm having great fun revisiting my collection of old musicals, vintage couture books and researching hairpieces from the various eras. I've also been converted to the dark side that is genuine Swarovski crystals. I've finally had to admit to myself that nothing really compares to their sparkle and despite the cost I am drooling over the colour chart as we speak.

So, what's coming up?

Tomorrow night, that's right, TOMORROW NIGHT is Club Smooch in Brighton Komedia! Can I hear a big WOOHOO! I always get a little excited to be performing in my home town and tomorrow night is no exception. There is nothing like the atmosphere when you know absolutely everyone backstage and all my friends can come along as well. I'm like a kid the night before Christmas!

So there is no excuse. If you're anywhere in the vicinity of Brighton tomorrow you will be sucked into the gravitational pull that is Club Smooch!

I will see you there.