Valentine's Treat xxx

You would not believe what I got up to last weekend. Or maybe you did from the photo. Yes I was an actual living, breathing, window display for the Valentine's Vintage Fair at Laura J in Islington London!

In the window was my makeshift boudoir as I primped and preened, giggled down the vintage phone and had tea and cupcakes while reading all about beautiful vintage costumes. You might be able to see in the window there are show times. On the hour I would vanish only to emerge as La belle femme, to do my fan dance. Which I have to say is going through a very popular stage as I was asked to perform it at a private booking later that evening as well. I suppose it is VERY valentine's appropriate.

I had found some beautiful red vintage reproduction underwear at the back of my drawer that I hadn't got around to using which was perfect for the window performances. As although I like to cause a stir, the beaded 1920's style g-string and bra/pasties is not entirely suitable for the middle of the day in a public place! As the reverend's wife in The Simpsons would say, 'Think of the Children!'

So my red agent provocateur corsolet and full 50s style pants were a sexy and safe option which let me focus on making pretty shapes with my fans, rather than on covering my ass! Having seen the pictures, I think it looks really cute. I think I've found an excellent 'Boston' version for this act.

Shaking off my feathers in the Laura J window.

Anyway, the vintage fair. There was naturally the full selection of Laura J shoes, of which I now own a stunning pair of black, patent heels I intend to wear out on my date tonight with BW.

The Laura J Lovelies!

Very saucy and uber cute Bann Bee lingerie, the divine French Kiss Vintage girls had a table of sparkly jewellery, handbags, vintage clothes were hung on the window, LadyLuck Rules OK necklaces and Lucy J Freeman doing vintage style makeovers. It was girly heaven!

And the French Kiss Vintage cuties!

The event was running all day although my contribution was from 1-4pm. Being more of a night owl, it was a bizarre experience finding myself up and about in London before midday. Luckily I was provided with cupcakes on my floral plate and tea in my dainty china tea cup as crowds gathered outside the shop window.

The girls took great care of me, constructing floaty curtains around me and getting the heater on and pointed in my direction to avoid the possibility of becoming an actual mannequin, frozen solid by the cold February winds!

I have to say, I was genuinely surprised by how the crowds really did gather and how many people filtered into the shop as a result. I suppose working in performance makes me immune at times to unusual sights but when I think about it, a woman in a pink chiffon and feather nightgown drinking tea in a window is quite unusual.

The crowds gather.

There was one little girl in particular who was just adorable and stood transfixed in front of the window. Her papa took her over the road so she could keep watching from a distance and before they left they came over so she could wave goodbye. She reminded me of myself as a little girl. If it was pink, I was fascinated!

She was just so adorable!

So altogether a very successful day. I took the opportunity to meet up with Duchess Divine for a quick dinner before heading out to Hitchin for my private booking.

Valentine's Day was a quiet affair as I recovered from carrying my bag up and down the thousands of stairs on the tube (seriously, more elevators please!), although I consoled myself in the knowledge that I must have had a great work out at the very least.

I was woken with a cup of tea from BW and we had a picnic on our living room floor - champagne, ploughmans and a movie.

Just perfect.

xx

The naughty Naughties...Burlesk Winter Warmer

Run through before Burlesk! Winter Warmer. Note that it was too cold to take my jeans off!

December was also the month for a very special Burlesk, and quite possibly my last one before my trip to Australia this year.

The snow had fallen and Brighton looked like a winter wonderland. Not so wondrous trying to drag my bag down to the station but nevertheless, magical to look at. I was surprised to find Hastings fairly untouched.

This time it was my pleasure to find there was a new addition to the Burlesk crew. A backstage manager. Sarah was an angel, nothing was too much trouble, even when I had her running up and down finding hair pins and glitter!

Miss Glory Pearl was back as well, doing her amazing pole tricks. As I find more and more, it becomes very frustrating when you can hear the audience whooping and cheering what you know to be an amazing act, but can't watch!

I was doing my Living Doll act with my giant gift box, and my La belle Femme en Rouge act the red angel fan dance. Some drunken idiot had tried to get into the box which was proudly on display at the entrance (there was no-where else to keep it!) so it felt a little unsteady going in, despite my checking the joins to make sure it was secure.

The best part though is that the start of this act is supposed to be humorous and so the box could fall apart completely and it wouldn't matter, it would all be part of the show.

Red angel was very well received, however the carpeted stage gave me the impetus to work on changing that act. Originally I did a Charleston step throughout some of this act and this was the second time I'd had trouble with a stage with too much grip.

I changed the music, to the very sexy tune The Mooch by Duke Ellington which immediately changed the feel of the act. And added a pile of large red feathers I've had in my costume bag for ages. Now I feel like a goddess every time I perform this.

So where was I? Burlesk! Yes, well Domino had a brilliant multi media act. If anyone has the capacity to have DVD displaying in conjunction with performance then oh my lord, book the girl!

Who else did we have? The newbie performer Raspberry Ripples with the fabulous sense of humour despite pre-show wardrobe malfunctions did a great debut act to a song I absolutely love - The bigger the figure by Louis Prima. Vivica Devine, who I'm still yet to see perform a full act even though we've been at the same nights so many times! I hear the audience cheering Vivica, one day I'll get to see you myself!

So my other big news for the night is the mean taxi driver who wouldn't take me to the station. We called a cab, one turned up, but he said he wasn't for me but proceeded to sit outside the venue for 20 minutes waiting for someone who never turned up and refusing to take me although a cab from his company should have been there for me. So I missed the last train home.

Hastings cabs, sort yourselves out! If it weren't for the loveliness of Barney our stage manager letting me sleep on the sofa I would have been all alone on a bitterly cold night, very far from home. Even more encouragement to get my licence and buy a camper van to drive around the country in.

So that was the excitement of Burlesk, it wasn't until this month that I realised I may not get to perform there again until I'm back from Australia due to bookings I've already made.

My heartfelt love and thanks to the wonderful performing arts community that the Burlesk show is becoming for a wonderful 2009.

xx

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!