tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-343318052024-02-03T09:39:23.004+00:00The Memoirs of Tricity VogueSecret Life of a Cabaret SingerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-23050291522310629652014-08-15T17:37:00.002+01:002014-08-26T13:32:20.782+01:00The Uke Of Edinburgh Awards 2014 - All-Star Line-Up Announced!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">***ALL-STAR LINE-UP ANNOUNCED!***</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">AFTERNOON SHOW: 4PM-6PM</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">HEAT 1:</span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://helenarney.com/">Helen Arney</a> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/three-shot-mockery">Joby Mageean (Three Shot Mockery)</a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/amy-g-entershamement">Amy G (Entershamement)</a></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">HEAT 2:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/guilty-secrets">Vicky Arlidge (Guilty Secrets)</a></span></b> </span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/eleanor-morton-lollipop">Eleanor Morton (Lollipop)</a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.missstephanieware.co.uk/#%21evavonschnippisch/c66t">Eva Von Schnippisch </a></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">HEAT 3:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/mike-belgrave-s-krazy-komedy-show-4-kidz">Mike Belgrave (Mike Belgrave's Krazy Komedy Show 4 Kidz)</a></span></b> </span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/jack-gardner-and-liberty-hodes-on-ice">Liberty Hodes (Jack Gardner & Liberty Hodes On Ice)</a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/chap-hop-superstar">Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer (Chap Hop Superstar)</a></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">UKE OF EDINBURGH AWARD WINNER: Eva Von Schnippisch</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Second place: Amy G</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Third place: Mike Belgrave</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">EVENING SHOW: 10.30pm-12am</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">HEAT 1:</span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.comedy.co.uk/fringe/2014/thom_tuck/">Thom Tuck (The Square Root Of Minus One)</a></span></b><br />
<b><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/creative-martyrs-cabapocalypsaret"><span style="font-size: large;">The Creative Martyrs (Cabapocalysaret)</span></a></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.mikedrblue.com/">Mike 'Dr Blue'</a> </span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">HEAT 2:</span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/laurence-owen-lullabies-of-pervland">Laurence Owen (Lullabies Of Pervland)</a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/ukulele-evangelists-bang-one-out">The Ukulele Evangelists (The Ukulele Evangelists Bang One Out)</a></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/in-vogue-songs-by-madonna"><b>Michael Griffith (In Vogue: Songs By Madonna)</b></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">HEAT 3:</span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/lady-carol-lost-and-found">Lady Carol (Lost And Found)</a></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/guinea-pigs-on-trial">Sh!t Theatre (Guinea Pigs On Trial)</a></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://twitter.com/JohnnySetlist"><b>Johnny Setlist </b></a></span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">UKE OF EDINBURGH AWARD WINNER: The Ukulele Evangelists</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Second place: Johnny Setlist</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Third place: The Creative Martyrs</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-size: large;">...Who will win the Uke Of Edinburgh Award and strum the golden ukulele on Tricity Vogue's head?</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Come to the New Empire Bingo hall to find out - and you could WIN your own ukulele to take home with you!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">If you have a uke, bring it along to join the mass strumalong to "You Are My Sunshine" at the start of the show. Here's how to play it:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/KuEgzgLq1ts?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Uke Of Edinburgh Awards is generously sponsored by <a href="http://www.musicroom.com/edinburgh">Rae Macintosh Musicroom</a>, who have donated a beautiful ukulele as the grand prize for each show's raffle.</span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tricity Vogue: The Uke Of Edinburgh Awards 2014</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>TWO SHOWS ONLY: </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Saturday 16 August at 4-6pm & 10.30pm-12am, </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;">Laughing Horse @ New Empire Bingo (Venue 110),
50 Nicolson Street, EH8 9DT</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif;">ENTRANCE FREE </span></b></span><b><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span></b><br />
<b><a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tricity-vogue-the-uke-of-edinburgh-awards"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman, Times, serif; font-size: x-small;">Book in advance to be sure of a seat </span></a></b> <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-73712498950512987422014-05-30T15:09:00.002+01:002014-09-17T11:01:44.627+01:00Songs For Swinging Ukuleles - Reviews & Audience Feedback<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"Songs For Swinging Ukuleles" at the Not Television Festival, Chelsea Theatre, 30 August 2014</span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">"Tricity’s show, Songs for Swinging Ukuleles, marks the flowering of a longstanding interest in man-drag: earlier in the year, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZyikp8ylMA" target="_blank" title="Tricity Vogue in Cut To">she chopped off her very long hair</a>
and bought a very nice suit and the rest is history. It’s a charming
suite of songs, a slow-burner that eases you in with a couple of saucy
call-and-response numbers about swinging of various kinds then starts to
soar. It reaches a dreamy new plane with an infectious waltz about
joining the circus (enhanced by audience bum-bum-bumming along), goes
dark (red bike light excepted) for a bedroom thriller, tugs the heart
with a love song of impossible simplicity then sends you out with a
foot-stomping anthem backed by volunteer voguers. Throughout, there are
opportunities to lend a hand, in gentle yet essential ways: singing
along here, using keys and change as percussion there, being dragged on
stage to do drag on stage for a couple of brave souls at the end.<b><b><b><b>"</b></b></b></b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ben Walters, <a href="http://www.nottelevision.net/uplifting-inaugural-not-television-festival/">nottelevision.net</a></span></span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></b></span></b>"Songs For Swinging Ukuleles" at the Edinburgh Fringe, 1-17 August 2014</span></b></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Here are some audience and published reviews for my solo show, 8.45pm nightly in the Lounge at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House. Full show details <a href="https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles">here:</a></span><br />
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“Full disclosure: I’ve been working alongside Tricity Vogue
for a couple of years now, and this year had the honour of being the technician
for her show, Songs For Swinging Ukuleles. Consequently, this meant I heard
each of the nine songs in the set sixteen times, which some might consider a
way of killing any kind of music. Repetition might satiate that fix you need to
hear a hook again, but it can kill even the best songs.</div>
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And yet I would wake up every August morning with one of the
songs from Swinging Ukuleles playing in my head, and I would still be happily
singing along later that evening when watching the show. It’s a testament to
Vogue’s songwriting skill, crafting a set of songs that are friendly, catchy,
humorous, and lasting beyond the end of the show. In most cases I’m not one for
live albums, but with Swinging Ukuleles, I have come to relive the live experience
over and over, enjoying the audience participation or additional backing vocals
and, consequently, would love such a product to come about. Indeed, even Vogue
seems to thrive with a live audience before her. A small crowd of people who
sit, smile, and won’t turn their noses up at some audience participation seems
to be the impetus that allows Vogue’s personality to shine.</div>
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Transferred into studio time, though, the songs are a
delight. Though just Vogue and her ukulele, the sonic effects play a key role:
On “The Bedroom In A Dangerous Place” Vogue’s voice is affected to sound like a
muffled trumpet in the dark distance; and the cheeky yelp on “Bad Showgirl” is
a delightful detail. But sweet numbers like “Run Away And Join The Circus”, the
alliterative double entendre of “My Favourite Fanny”, or the delicate “I Spent
The Night With You” stand on their own. She slides between personal intimacy
and rousingly relatable choruses at the flick of a wrist. All this might be
criticized as being the subject of bias, but I’m not lying when I say that
weeks on from the last performance of Songs For Swing Ukuleles, I still wake up
in the morning to the chorus to “Don’t Let Them Drag You Down” playing in my
head.”</div>
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Ray Finlayson, <a href="http://www.unrecorded.mu/features/the-show-must-go-on-the-unsung-heroes-of-cabaret/">Unrecorded</a></div>
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“Bowled over by Tricity Vogue's ingenious mixture of her own
songs coupled with costume flair (loved the suit!) on the theme which amusingly
explored gender. She cleverly entertained us with a collection of original
lyrics on varied topics from 'Swing' with delightful sexual innuendos, through
educating us on alliteration (focussing on 'Fanny'!) and scary tales of
nightmares, whilst allowing us to evocatively share her personal experience and
romance. All the while the audience was happily drawn in and encouraged to
participate by her spontaneous warm and witty interaction with them, singing
along with choruses no more taxing than "Bum,bum,bum!! The tunes resonated
and entertained and we all loved it. This was a consummate performance. Miss
Vogue you are a star.”</div>
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Jo Millar via Edfringe.com</div>
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“Great show, great entertainment. Audience very happy to
'bum' along! Also wonderful ukelele playing - better than other ukelele players
charging much more in the fringe... Enjoy the circus! Thanks!”</div>
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Fiona and Aileen via Edfringe.com</div>
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“An hour in the company of the most charming, witty,
entertaining cabaret artist. The intimate venue encourages frequent audience
participation and you will want to join in. An hour is not enough and we would
have happily spent another hour in the company of Tricity Vogue.”</div>
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Keith Phillips via Edfringe.com</div>
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“It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing... And
Tricity NEVER fails to disappoint... With more witty self-reinvention than
Madonna ever envisaged, and command of her small instrument, she will woo the crowds
at the Fringe once more with her delightful one-woman show. We sat in a first
night throng, overflowing from the small room, in sweltering heat, but even
that could not dent the lady's 'cool'. It was a charming delight of a show. And
the singalong chorus from the Circus song had everyone happily 'bumming
along'... For days afterwards in fact, as my hosts could not stop singing and
at any given moment that refrain would be trilled along to. Gorgeous. And as
ever, hilarious, and poignant too. Tricity takes you on a journey. And you will
only ever leave entertained and upbeat. And that, in the world at large at the
moment, is a gift. Keep strumming, you talented plucker, you. :)”</div>
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Amelia Clark via Edfringe.com</div>
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“Tricity Vogue is one of those performers who I would travel
anywhere to see, Her Songs are Beautiful and memorable, I have been singing
them in my head all week now...”</div>
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Steve Mackenzie via Edfringe.com</div>
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“I turned up at this show and was greeted by the most
charming lady herself in a three piece suit. She looked so cool. Before the actual
snow started Tricity was charming the audience with her cheeky ways and hit.
The show itself is a delight. It went by too quick as Tricity played her funny
and catchy tunes and encouraged the audience to join in with her, which I find
always such fun.”</div>
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Clive Holland via Edfringe.com</div>
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“The sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to
truly find a niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele drag
cabaret. Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how much
enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience were up for
it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song: two people are
hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a love song and another
provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light (why yes, this is a free show!).
Vogue ends on a number from an in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now
desperate to see. A storming slice of cabaret.” ****<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/ed2014-cabaret-review-tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles-tricity-vogue-free-festival/">ThreeWeeks</a></span></div>
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"Great show this evening, loved it! <br />
Came away thinking about 3 things: Victor Victoria (predictably); Regina Spektor (your scary night song); and Chaucer\'s Wife of Bath:<br />
Gat-tothed I was, and that bicam me weel;<br />
I hadde the prente of seinte venus seel.<br />
As help me god! I was a lusty oon,<br />
And faire, and riche, and yong, and wel bigon.<br />
Good luck for the Uke of Edinburgh... "<br />
Fiona via email <br />
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“Tricity Vogue, well known for her cabaret shows
accompanying herself on the ukelele, has staged a preview of her new show to be
taken up to the Edinburgh Festival.</div>
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Playing with the concept of cross-gender and drag, she
dresses up in a beautifully tailored suit and, displaying great commitment,
sports a slick man’s haircut – cut live on stage in a previous show at the same
venue.</div>
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Songs for Swinging Ukeleles consists entirely of her own
compositions, with anecdote and changes of costume, at one point re-applying
her own shorn hair. The atmosphere created evokes a feeling of 1920s Weimar,
though with less of the darkness associated with that era, and is refreshingly
light and charming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The theatrical
effect takes us gently into another world where we willingly suspend our
disbelief.</div>
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As the title suggests, she sings of swingers (both of the
sexual and dance kind), showgirls, sartorial elegance, love and her fear of
joining the circus- she has been invited by a French one, it transpires.</div>
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Throughout the show, Vogue uses various devices to keep the
audience participating and investing in the piece, and such encouragements are
subtly and playfully done. She is a very engaging performer, cheeky without
being crude and quite delightful.</div>
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The standout items, though, were the ones that struck a
different note.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The song on
nightmares changed the tone of the piece reaching a deeper level, demanding a
greater degree of attention, and her ballad on a date starting as a one-night
stand and leading to a declaration of love added contrast.</div>
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The preview was performed in a South London pub, the Royal
Vauxhall Tavern, on one of the hottest nights of the year, thus attracting very
little audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nonetheless,
Vogue was able to sweep the small rather disparate group along and it was clear
everyone had a very enjoyable night.</div>
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Both Vogue and the show deserve bigger crowds up in
Edinburgh – she should do well.”</div>
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Fiona-Jane Weston,<a href="http://capitalcabaretsandshowsscene.net/2014/07/25/tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukeleles/"> <u>capitalcabaretsandshowsscene.net</u></a></div>
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With <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> at the counting house at the fringe festival.Women in suits and good make up are very attractive. <a class="twitter-timeline-link u-hiddenVisually" data-pre-embedded="true" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/l4x5RQSlTi">pic.twitter.com/l4x5RQSlTi</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Tessa Bamkin via twitter</span><br />
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<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
The
sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to truly find a
niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele drag cabaret.
Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how much
enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience were
up for it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song: two
people are hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a
love song and another provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light
(why yes, this is a free show!). Vogue ends on a number from an
in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now desperate to see. A
storming slice of cabaret.<br />
<i>Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, until 17 Aug.</i><br />
<i>tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]</i><br />
- See more at:
http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/ed2014-cabaret-review-tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles-tricity-vogue-free-festival/#sthash.HvU5daLj.dpuf <!--
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<p class="MsoNormal">
"The sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to
truly find a niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele drag
cabaret. Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how much
enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience were up for
it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song: two people are
hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a love song and another
provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light (why yes, this is a free show!).
Vogue ends on a number from an in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now
desperate to see. A storming slice of cabaret.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, until 17 Aug."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
ThreeWeeks Sunday 17 August 2014 | By Jon Stapley
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
ED2014 Cabaret Review: Tricity Vogue – Songs For Swinging
Ukuleles (Tricity Vogue / Free Festival)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
</p>
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<h3>
Sunday 17 August 2014 | By <a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/author/jonstapley/" title="Posts by Jon Stapley" rel="author">Jon Stapley</a></h3>
<h1>
ED2014 Cabaret Review: Tricity Vogue – Songs For Swinging Ukuleles (Tricity Vogue / Free Festival)</h1>
<h4>
<a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/category/ed2014-reviews/2014-tw-rating/ed2014-45-reviews/" title="View all posts in ED2014 4/5 Reviews" rel="category tag">ED2014 4/5 Reviews</a> <a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/category/ed2014-reviews/ed2014-cabaret-reviews/" title="View all posts in ED2014 Cabaret Reviews" rel="category tag">ED2014 Cabaret Reviews</a></h4>
<p>
The sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to
truly find a niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele
drag cabaret. Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how
much enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience
were up for it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song:
two people are hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a
love song and another provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light
(why yes, this is a free show!). Vogue ends on a number from an
in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now desperate to see. A
storming slice of cabaret.</p>
<p>
<em>Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, until 17 Aug.</em><br>
<em>tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]</em></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
- See
more at:
http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/ed2014-cabaret-review-tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles-tricity-vogue-free-festival/#sthash.HvU5daLj.dpuf</div>
<div style="position: absolute; top: -1999px; left: -1988px;" id="stcpDiv">
<p>
The
sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to truly find a
niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele drag cabaret.
Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how much
enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience were
up for it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song: two
people are hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a
love song and another provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light
(why yes, this is a free show!). Vogue ends on a number from an
in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now desperate to see. A
storming slice of cabaret.</p>
<p>
<em>Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, until 17 Aug.</em><br>
<em>tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]</em></p>
- See more at:
http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/ed2014-cabaret-review-tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles-tricity-vogue-free-festival/#sthash.HvU5daLj.dpuf</div>
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<div id="mainBody">
<div class="mainArea">
<div class="main">
<div class="contentArea">
<h3>
Sunday 17 August 2014 | By <a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/author/jonstapley/" title="Posts by Jon Stapley" rel="author">Jon Stapley</a></h3>
<h1>
ED2014 Cabaret Review: Tricity Vogue – Songs For Swinging Ukuleles (Tricity Vogue / Free Festival)</h1>
<h4>
<a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/category/ed2014-reviews/2014-tw-rating/ed2014-45-reviews/" title="View all posts in ED2014 4/5 Reviews" rel="category tag">ED2014 4/5 Reviews</a> <a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/category/ed2014-reviews/ed2014-cabaret-reviews/" title="View all posts in ED2014 Cabaret Reviews" rel="category tag">ED2014 Cabaret Reviews</a></h4>
<p>
The sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to
truly find a niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele
drag cabaret. Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how
much enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience
were up for it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song:
two people are hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a
love song and another provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light
(why yes, this is a free show!). Vogue ends on a number from an
in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now desperate to see. A
storming slice of cabaret.</p>
<p>
<em>Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, until 17 Aug.</em><br>
<em>tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]</em></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
- See
more at:
http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/ed2014-cabaret-review-tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles-tricity-vogue-free-festival/#sthash.HvU5daLj.dpuf</div>
<div style="position: absolute; top: -1999px; left: -1988px;" id="stcpDiv">
<div id="mainBody">
<div class="mainArea">
<div class="main">
<div class="contentArea">
<h3>
Sunday 17 August 2014 | By <a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/author/jonstapley/" title="Posts by Jon Stapley" rel="author">Jon Stapley</a></h3>
<h1>
ED2014 Cabaret Review: Tricity Vogue – Songs For Swinging Ukuleles (Tricity Vogue / Free Festival)</h1>
<h4>
<a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/category/ed2014-reviews/2014-tw-rating/ed2014-45-reviews/" title="View all posts in ED2014 4/5 Reviews" rel="category tag">ED2014 4/5 Reviews</a> <a href="http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/category/ed2014-reviews/ed2014-cabaret-reviews/" title="View all posts in ED2014 Cabaret Reviews" rel="category tag">ED2014 Cabaret Reviews</a></h4>
<p>
The sheer number of shows at the Fringe can make it hard to
truly find a niche, but Tricity Vogue has managed it with her ukulele
drag cabaret. Playing songs on a variety of themes, it’s impressive how
much enthusiasm she’s able to eke out of the cramped room her audience
were up for it within minutes. Vogue involves them in almost every song:
two people are hauled up as drag backing dancers, one is the object of a
love song and another provides atmosphere by holding up a bike light
(why yes, this is a free show!). Vogue ends on a number from an
in-progress “drag action musical” that I’m now desperate to see. A
storming slice of cabaret.</p>
<p>
<em>Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, until 17 Aug.</em><br>
<em>tw rating 4/5 | [Jon Stapley]</em></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
- See
more at:
http://www.threeweeks.co.uk/article/ed2014-cabaret-review-tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukuleles-tricity-vogue-free-festival/#sthash.HvU5daLj.dpuf</div>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<font size="3">
</font></p>
<p>
"Great show, great entertainment. Audience very happy to 'bum' along!
Also wonderful ukelele playing - better than other ukelele players charging much more in the fringe... Enjoy the circus! Thanks!"Fiona and Aileen via edfringe.com </p>
<p>
<br></p>
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="1467065827" href="https://twitter.com/simonjaycomedy">
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>"@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> amazing show last night - listening to your brilliant album :) and I finally looked up 'Rusty Trombone' :0 jaw - dropped... ;)"</p>
</div>
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<p>
<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="1467065827" href="https://twitter.com/simonjaycomedy"><b class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id">Simon Reuben Jay</b>
<font class="username js-action-profile-name"><s>@</s><b>simonjaycomedy</b></font></a> via twitter </p>
</div>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<font size="3">"Great show this evening, loved it! <br>Came away thinking about 3 things: Victor Victoria (predictably); Regina Spektor (your scary night song); and Chaucer\'s Wife of Bath:<br>Gat-tothed I was, and that bicam me weel;<br>I hadde the prente of seinte venus seel.<br>As help me god! I was a lusty oon,<br>And faire, and riche, and yong, and wel bigon.<br>Good luck for the Uke of Edinburgh..."</font></p>
<p>
<font size="3">Fiona Mackintosh via email </font></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<font size="3">"</font><font size="3">Tricity Vogues Songs for Swinging Ukeleles 5 Bananas<br> A brilliant
show jam packed with originality from this talented singer/songwriter,
songs to warm your heart and definitely make you laugh out loud. Great
audience interaction - you can tell Tricity loves what she does as it
shines through in her performance and the audience around her."</font></p>
<p>
<font size="3">Dr Sketchys Edinburgh </font></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<font size="3"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.$author">"</font><font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0">Really enjoyed your show tonight thankyou. It is a Fringe Must."</font></font></font></font></p>
<p>
<font size="3"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152280637556778=263_10152280899736778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0">Carl Murray via Facebook </font></font></font> </font></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
"An hour in the company of the most charming, witty,
entertaining cabaret artist. The intimate venue encourages frequent
audience participation and you will want to join in. An hour is not
enough and we would have happily spent another hour in the company of
Tricity Vogue."</p>
<p>
Keith Phillips via edfringe.com </p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
"It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing... And
Tricity NEVER fails to disappoint... With more witty self-reinvention
than Madonna ever envisaged, and command of her small instrument, she
will woo the crowds at the Fringe once more with her delightful
one-woman show. We sat in a first night throng, overflowing from the
small room, in sweltering heat, but even that could not dent the lady's
'cool'. It was a charming delight of a show. And the singalong chorus
from the Circus song had everyone happily 'bumming along'... For days
afterwards in fact, as my hosts could not stop singing and at any given
moment that refrain would be trilled along to. Gorgeous. And as ever,
hilarious, and poignant too. Tricity takes you on a journey. And you
will only ever leave entertained and upbeat. And that, in the world at
large at the moment, is a gift. Keep strumming, you talented plucker,
you. :)"</p>
<p>
Amelia Clark via edfringe.com </p>
<p>
<font size="3"> </font></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="736448892" href="https://twitter.com/Wiccaezz"><font class="username js-action-profile-name"><b> </b></font></a></p>
<div class="js-tweet-text tweet-text">
<p>
"Ukulele fun <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/edfringe?src=hash"><s>#</s><b>edfringe</b></a> tonight. A class act & spiffy new badge for me! Get swinging down to see it! <a class="twitter-timeline-link u-hiddenVisually" data-blogger-escaped-data-pre-embedded="true" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/zkWbGBsDrY">pic.twitter.com/zkWbGBsDrY"</a></p>
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<p>
<a class="media media-thumbnail twitter-timeline-link is-preview" data-blogger-escaped-data-resolved-url-large="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bui_BP3CcAASve4.jpg:large" data-blogger-escaped-data-url="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bui_BP3CcAASve4.jpg:large" href="https://twitter.com/Wiccaezz/status/497857807094661120/photo/1">
</a></p>
<div class="">
<p>
<a class="media media-thumbnail twitter-timeline-link is-preview" data-blogger-escaped-data-resolved-url-large="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bui_BP3CcAASve4.jpg:large" data-blogger-escaped-data-url="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bui_BP3CcAASve4.jpg:large" href="https://twitter.com/Wiccaezz/status/497857807094661120/photo/1"><img alt="Embedded image permalink" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bui_BP3CcAASve4.jpg" height="700" width="700">
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</a></p>
</div>
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</div>
<div class="review">
<h4>
<font size="3">Erin Smith</font><a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="736448892" href="https://twitter.com/Wiccaezz"><font size="3"><font class="username js-action-profile-name"><b>@Wiccaezz via twitter</b></font></font>
</a>
</h4>
<div class="ProfileTweet-authorDetails">
<p>
<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="614515260" href="https://twitter.com/WahlofBooks"><img alt="" class="ProfileTweet-avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2382860445/n6wf6d2b30vzm7li9x5f_normal.jpeg">
<font class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthor u-floatLeft u-textTruncate js-action-profile-name">
<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">Karen Wahl</b>
<font class="ProfileTweet-screenname u-inlineBlock u-dir" dir="ltr">
<font class="at">@</font>WahlofBooks
</font>
</font>
</a>
<font class="u-floatLeft"> · </font>
<font class="u-floatLeft">
<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip u-textUserColor" href="https://twitter.com/WahlofBooks/status/497151505745850368" title="11:45 PM - 6 Aug 2014">
<font class="js-short-timestamp " data-blogger-escaped-data-long-form="true" data-blogger-escaped-data-time="1407365130">
Aug 6
</font>
</a>
</font>
</p>
</div>
<div class="ProfileTweet-text js-tweet-text u-dir" dir="ltr">
<p>
"Definitely check out <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> at the Counting House if you get a chance. Excellent performer and a fun show. <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/edfringe?src=hash"><s>#</s><b>edfringe</b></a> <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/mlsfringe?src=hash"><s>#</s><b>mlsfringe"</b></a></p>
</div>
<div class="ProfileTweet-text js-tweet-text u-dir" dir="ltr">
<p>
<br></p>
</div>
<h4>
<font style="font-weight: normal;">"Tricity Vogue is one of those performers who I would travel
anywhere to see, Her Songs are Beautiful and memorable, I have been
singing them in my head all week now... "</font></h4>
<h4>
<font style="font-weight: normal;">Steve Mackenzie via edfringe.com</font></h4>
</div>
<p>
"I turned up at this show and was greeted by the most charming
lady herself in a three piece suit . She looked so cool .
Before the actual snow started Tricity was charming the audience with
her cheeky ways and wit.
The show itself is a delight . It went by too quick as Tricity played
her funny and catchy tunes and encouraged the audience to join in with
her, which I find always such fun."</p>
<h4>
<font style="font-weight: normal;">Clive Holland </font><font class="review-date"><font style="font-weight: normal;">via edfringe.com</font></font></h4>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<font class="userContent">"Great start to my evening bumming with @tricityvogue, recommend you do the same by seeing her show Songs For Swinging Ukuleles #Edfringe"</font></p>
<p>
<font class="userContent"><font class="userContent">Claire Holland @emmiebobo via twitter</font></font></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<font class="userContent"><font class="userContent"> "Myself &Claire Holland went to send the lovely Tricity Vogue perform her delightful new show " songs for swinging ukuleles last night . <br>A lovely appreciate audience was charmed by her lovely witty tunes and warm personality . <br>I laughed all the way through the show and she was nearly upstage at the finale by a audience member who was asked to assist her. A classic moment I won't forget . <br>It's also disturbing for me how a lady can look so much better in a three piece suit than I ever will !<br>#edfringe #unbored"</font></font></p>
<p>
<font class="userContent"><font class="userContent">Clive Holland via facebook </font> </font></p>
<p>
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<p>
<font class="userContent">"Fan-fucking-tastic evening in the company of <a data-blogger-escaped-data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=569396807" href="https://www.facebook.com/Robert.J.Sneddon">Robert</a>, <a data-blogger-escaped-data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1323571510" href="https://www.facebook.com/alastairmjsmith">Alastair</a>, and <a data-blogger-escaped-data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=797000584" href="https://www.facebook.com/kevin.murray.5015983">Kevin</a>.... <a data-blogger-escaped-data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=538496777" href="https://www.facebook.com/tricityvogue">Tricity</a>
did her thing, we guessed the difference between swing dancing terms
and sex positions then chucked a bowler hat around, watched as Tricity
went from dappe<font class="text_exposed_show">r chap to loverly lady in
an impressively sleek costume change regardless of the heat in that wee
room at The Counting House and on top of that we had the pleasure of
witnessing and being impressed by Lola's dance moves.... Grand start to
the Fringe for mysel I'd say!"</font></font></p>
<p>
<font class="userContent"><font class="text_exposed_show">Lins McRobie via Facebook</font></font></p>
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<font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:0"></font><font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0">"Really pleased to have been in the crowd for your first opening night full house, Tricity. Really good show."</font></font></font></p>
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<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0">Mark Coyne via Facebook</font></font></font></p>
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</div>
<div class="UFICommentContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0">
<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0"><font class="userContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"Tricity at the Counting house at <a class="_58cn" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/fringe">#fringe</a> is awesome xx"</font></font></font></font></p>
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<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0"><font class="userContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Theresa Larkin via Facebook </font></font></font></font></p>
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<div class="UFICommentContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0">
<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0"><font class="userContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"A frankly exquisite night watching a packed out, rammed to the rafters Tricity Vogue first night for Songs for Swinging Ukuleles... It was hotter than hades, but more than compensated for with the delicious naughty strumming, gentle comedy narratives, and beautiful vocal stylings of Ms Vogue. My hosts, though sweltered, have not stopped 'bumming' the circus chorus yet, and were chattering about the show for hours afterwards. I sat in gleeful reverie, t'is always good to share your favourite things. Well done TV, may the rest of the FEST be equally marvellous. You deserve eet!"</font></font></font></font></p>
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<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0"><font class="userContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Amelia Clark via Facebook </font></font></font></font></p>
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<div class="UFICommentContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0">
<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0"><font class="userContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"> <b>"Tricity</b> <b>Vogue</b> (<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a>). Never disappoints! Saucy uke music with swing. Def go see her! Counting House @ 20:45 <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/edfringe?src=hash"><s>#</s><b>edfringe</b></a>"</font></font></font></font></p>
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<p>
<font data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><font class="UFICommentBody" data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><font data-blogger-escaped-data-reactid=".2.1:3:1:$comment538496777=210152260670106778=263_10152262052256778:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0"><font class="userContent" data-blogger-escaped-data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="18192952" href="https://twitter.com/DaveMooreMagic"><b class="fullname js-action-profile-name show-popup-with-id">Dave Moore</b>
<font class="username js-action-profile-name"><s>@</s><b>DaveMooreMagic</b></font> </a><small class="time"><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-blogger-escaped-data-original-title="10:28 PM - 31 Jul 2014" href="https://twitter.com/DaveMooreMagic/status/494957887257853954"><font class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp " data-blogger-escaped-data-long-form="true" data-blogger-escaped-data-time-ms="1406842130000" data-blogger-escaped-data-time="1406842130"></font></a></small> via twitter</font> </font></font></font></p>
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<p>
<b><font size="6"><b><font size="6">"Songs For Swinging Ukuleles" at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, 23 August 2014</font></b></font></b></p>
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<p>
<font size="3">Thanks to Fiona-Jane Weston for this lovely review on <br><a href="http://capitalcabaretsandshowsscene.net/2014/07/25/tricity-vogue-songs-for-swinging-ukeleles/">capitalcabaretsandshowsscene.net</a>:</font></p>
<h3>
<i><b> "Tricity Vogu</b>e previews her new cabaret <b>Songs for Swinging Ukeleles</b> at <b>The Royal Vauxhall</b> Tavern. Read <b>review</b> here:</i><font id="more-752"></font></h3>
<p>
<a href="https://20cwoman.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tricity-2.jpg"><img alt="Tricity 2" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-754" data-orig-src="http://20cwoman.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tricity-2.jpg?w=640&h=640" src="//images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F20cwoman.files.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F07%2Ftricity-2.jpg%3Fw%3D640%26h%3D640&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" height="640" width="640"></a></p>
<p>
<b><a data-blogger-escaped-target="_blank" href="http://www.tricityvogue.com/">Tricity Vogue</a>,
well known for her cabaret shows accompanying herself on the ukelele,
has staged a preview of her new show to be taken up to the Edinburgh
Festival.</b></p>
<p>
Playing with the concept of cross-gender and drag, she dresses up in a
beautifully tailored suit and, displaying great commitment, sports a
slick man’s haircut – cut live on stage in a previous show at the same
venue.</p>
<p>
<b><i>Songs for Swinging Ukeleles</i> consists entirely of her own compositions, with anecdote and changes of costume, at one point re-applying her own shorn hair</b>.
The atmosphere created evokes a feeling of 1920s Weimar, though with
less of the darkness associated with that era, and is refreshingly light
and charming. The theatrical effect takes us gently into another world
where we willingly suspend our disbelief.</p>
<p>
As the title suggests, she sings of swingers (both of the sexual and
dance kind), showgirls, sartorial elegance, love and her fear of joining
the circus- she has been invited by a French one, it transpires.</p>
<p>
<b>Throughout the show, Vogue uses various devices to keep the
audience participating and investing in the piece, and such
encouragements are subtly and playfully done.</b> She is a very engaging performer, cheeky without being crude and quite delightful.</p>
<p>
<b>The standout items, though, were the ones that struck a different note.</b>
The song on nightmares changed the tone of the piece reaching a deeper
level, demanding a greater degree of attention, and her ballad on a date
starting as a one-night stand and leading to a declaration of love
added contrast.</p>
<p>
<b>The preview was performed in a South London pub, the <a data-blogger-escaped-target="_blank" href="http://rvt.org.uk/">Royal Vauxhall Tavern</a>, on one of the hottest nights of the year, thus attracting very little audience.</b>
Nonetheless, Vogue was able to sweep the small rather disparate group
along and it was clear everyone had a very enjoyable night.</p>
<p>
Both Vogue and the show deserve bigger crowds up in Edinburgh – she should do well."</p>
<p>
<i><b>Fiona-Jane Weston</b></i></p>
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<p>
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<p>
<br></p>
<p>
<b><font size="6"><b><font size="6">"Songs For Swinging Ukuleles" at Kitchen Kabaret, Westcliffe-on-Sea - Monday 1 July 2014</font></b></font></b></p>
<p>
<br></p>
<p>
Thanks to Lili La Scala for hosting my Edinburgh Fringe show preview in her kitchen, and to her guests for their great feedback and photos:</p>
<p>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="1459860391" href="https://twitter.com/JanieDolby">
<img alt="" class="ProfileTweet-avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/473749121606877185/EN4gdCDC_normal.jpeg">
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<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">Jane Dollyberg</b>
<font class="ProfileTweet-screenname u-inlineBlock u-dir" dir="ltr">
<font class="at">@</font>JanieDolby
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<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-blogger-escaped-data-original-title="12:33 AM - 2 Jul 2014" href="https://twitter.com/JanieDolby/status/484117566034432000">
<font class="js-short-timestamp " data-blogger-escaped-data-long-form="true" data-blogger-escaped-data-time="1404257596">
Jul 2
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<p>
Fab kabaret from <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> + special guest cameos from <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/ourtinyservant"><s>@</s><b>ourtinyservant</b></a> <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/nadinecarter"><s>@</s><b>nadinecarter</b></a> Thank you lili_la_scala x <a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-pre-embedded="true" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/wUM3C5nkYQ">pic.twitter.com/wUM3C5nkYQ</a></p>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="176036644" href="https://twitter.com/TapeFaceBoy">
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<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">Tape Face</b>
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<font class="at">@</font>TapeFaceBoy
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<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" href="https://twitter.com/TapeFaceBoy/status/484099639042666497" title="11:22 PM - 1 Jul 2014">
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Jul 1
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The Boy had another wonderful evening of Kitchen Kabaret and <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> was on great form! Grab tickets for her Edinburgh show and enjoy!</p>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="158365688" href="https://twitter.com/nadinecarter">
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<font class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthor u-pullLeft u-textTruncate js-action-profile-name">
<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">nadine carter</b>
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<font class="at">@</font>nadinecarter
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<font class="u-pullLeft"> · </font>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" href="https://twitter.com/nadinecarter/status/484093781181202432" title="10:58 PM - 1 Jul 2014">
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Jul 1
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Fabulous evening of kitchen kabaret thank you to a fabulous host <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/lili_la_scala"><s>@</s><b>lili_la_scala</b></a> and bravo <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> <a class="twitter-timeline-link u-isHiddenVisually" data-blogger-escaped-data-pre-embedded="true" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/M4NTtheVDj">pic.twitter.com/M4NTtheVDj</a></p>
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<a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrfYuo4IcAALiyT.jpg:large" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Embedded image permalink" class="TwitterPhoto-mediaSource" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrfYuo4IcAALiyT.jpg:large" style="margin-top: -48px;" border="0" height="400" width="300"></a></p>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="55510428" href="https://twitter.com/ourtinyservant">
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<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">Ash Fields</b>
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<font class="at">@</font>ourtinyservant
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<font class="u-pullLeft"> · </font>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" href="https://twitter.com/ourtinyservant/status/484090004051075072" title="10:43 PM - 1 Jul 2014">
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Jul 1
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/ellefromthebar"><s>@</s><b>ellefromthebar</b></a> <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/lili_la_scala"><s>@</s><b>lili_la_scala</b></a> <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> A stupendous, hilarious night that was quite mesmerising. Just hope those photos don't get out!</p>
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<font class="ProfileTweet-geo u-pullRight js-tooltip" title="Southend-on-Sea"><a class="ProfileTweet-actionButton u-linkClean" data-blogger-escaped-role="button" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=place%3A03a5820911d90b76"><font class="u-isHiddenVisually"></font></a></font><br></p>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="19510050" href="https://twitter.com/ellefromthebar">
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<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">Elisa Adams</b>
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<font class="at">@</font>ellefromthebar
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<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" href="https://twitter.com/ellefromthebar/status/484084099238600704" title="10:20 PM - 1 Jul 2014">
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Jul 1
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Seeing <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/ourtinyservant"><s>@</s><b>ourtinyservant</b></a> in drag tonight made my life! Well done <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/lili_la_scala"><s>@</s><b>lili_la_scala</b></a> & <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> for another stonking Kitchen Kabaret!</p>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthorLink u-linkComplex js-nav js-user-profile-link" data-blogger-escaped-data-user-id="168242473" href="https://twitter.com/lili_la_scala">
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<font class="ProfileTweet-originalAuthor u-pullLeft u-textTruncate js-action-profile-name">
<b class="ProfileTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target">Lili la Scala</b>
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<a class="ProfileTweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip u-textUserColor" data-blogger-escaped-data-original-title="8:42 AM - 2 Jul 2014" href="https://twitter.com/lili_la_scala/status/484240710175313920">
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Jul 2
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Kitchen Kabaret was great, thanks to everyone who came & to <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/tricityvogue"><s>@</s><b>tricityvogue</b></a> for sharing her fab new songs with us. Next time - <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/DustyLimits"><s>@</s><b>DustyLimits</b></a></p>
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<font size="3"><b><b>And here's a film shot on the road to Westcliffe by James Millar:</b></b></font></p>
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<b><font size="6"><b><font size="6"> </font></b>"Songs For Swinging Ukuleles" at the Coach & Horses, Soho - Sunday 11 May 2014</font></b></p>
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I previewed my new solo show, "Songs For Swinging Ukuleles", at Norman's Coach & Horses on Sunday 11 May, and asked the audience for their feedback and reviews.</p>
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Here's what they said!</p>
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<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10374008_10152115709396778_2336114710508058688_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10374008_10152115709396778_2336114710508058688_n.jpg" border="0" height="189" width="320"></a></p>
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Photo by James Millar</p>
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<font size="5"><font color="#262626" face="Georgia" lang="EN-US">"@tricityvogue thanks for such an
enjoyable time last night. A delightful collection of new songs. Xx"</font></font></p>
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<font style="font-size: 22.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" color="#262626" face="Georgia" lang="EN-US"><font style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" face="GillSans" lang="EN-US">@emmiebobo</font><font size="3"> via twitter</font></font></p>
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<font style="font-size: 22.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" color="#262626" face="Georgia" lang="EN-US"><font size="3"> </font></font><font style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" face="GillSans" lang="EN-US"> </font></p>
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<font size="5"><font face="GillSans" lang="EN-US">"Tricity is guaranteed to charm, captivate and slap a silly grin
on your face"</font></font></p>
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<font style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;" face="GillSans" lang="EN-US">Claire Holland </font></p>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Tricity Vogue's new show is sublime. Edinburgh-ites, you are
in for a treat. *# proudoftalentedmate
,. *# wishididnthavetoleavethelockin
,... the ballad, and lovely circus song were highlights, plus all the lovely naughty
you come to expect. Night terror song also hilarious well done Uke diva, well done!!!
Xxx lovely company, host, and audience too... "</span></div>
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Amelia Clark</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Clive Holland</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Our thanks to the funny, flirtatious and frankly 'fenomenal'
Tricity Vogue. Another winning show."</span></span></div>
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Anne-Sophie & Emma-Jane Dallison</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"Thoroughly enjoyed <a href="https://twitter.com/i/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Ftricityvogue%3Frefsrc%3Demail&t=1&sig=bf152e59c2b24cad7593d3f558e503da070a8927&iid=e3248c4c2f4e4dc39c905d0ee204e207&uid=27353810&nid=4+1271"><span style="color: #3272a1; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">@tricityvogue</span></a>'s
preview last night. Favourite songs were the soppy ones. Oh how I've changed
as I've gotten older."</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 22.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: small;">@maaaud via twitter</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans;">"Tricity Vogue re-defines entertainment with a ukelele! A truly
unique, charming and funny show."</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">David Carr</span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans;">"Tricity Vogue's show is great fun. It's glitzy and
glam with catchy songs and lots of opportunity for audience participation. A
definite must see!"</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #351c75;">
</span><br />
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans;">Helen Morrissey</span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10390313_10152115678356778_6094662514885511336_n.jpg?oh=7e5122b7894804154fbb4f99a0d4374a&oe=5404CD8C" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10390313_10152115678356778_6094662514885511336_n.jpg?oh=7e5122b7894804154fbb4f99a0d4374a&oe=5404CD8C" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Clive Holland</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans;">"What A Show, What A Gal, What A Great New Look… Tricity Vogue: Sharper Than Ever!"</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Alastair Choat, Landlord, Coach & Horses</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #244d15; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">"Your manner is so fun, you can get
away with anything."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #244d15; font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Heather Uprichard</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f449a; font-family: GillSans;">"I really enjoyed your show and was glad I went. It
had a genuine Music Hall feel with a modern twist. You are clearly a talented
player of the ukulele and singer</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f449a; font-family: GillSans;">. I particularly liked the audience participation
elements - it was great fun and perfect for the venue and size of audience. Your play on drag and gender was very tastefully done
and I thought you looked fantastic - the make up must take some practice!"</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1f449a; font-family: GillSans; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rachel Bull</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by James Millar</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans;">"Tricity vogues new show "Songs for Swinging Ukuleles": it's not what you think, it's even better. You'll have the most swinging, tuneful, fun-filled night you can have with your clothes on. Tricity Vogue is cabaret's answer to Eurovision, but wth so much better songs. She's part showgirl, part sharp dressed lady in a mans suit (without a beard!). This is a show that make you want to swing and sing and laugh and smile. Tell all your friends about it. Don't miss."</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Clive Holland</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: large;"><span class="null">"Loved the show... you create such a special atmosphere. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: large;"><span class="null"><span class="null">I came away with a lovely nice glow." </span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span class="null"><span class="null">Pete Saunders </span></span> </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10314578_10152115698441778_5211519406927544643_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10314578_10152115698441778_5211519406927544643_n.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Clive Holland</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: GillSans; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-70708709412141914272014-05-28T01:57:00.001+01:002014-05-28T01:57:55.722+01:00The Cat On The Fence: A Fairy Tale_________________________<br />
<br />
There was once a prince who banished his minstrel wife for deceiving him with a cat. It's <a href="http://tricityvogue.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/room-to-swing-cat-fairy-tale.html" target="_blank">a fine story</a>, but this story begins where that one ends. The cat was also an enchantress who had once imprisoned the prince in a tower for seven years. That was <a href="http://tricityvogue.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-cat-in-bag-fairy-story-prince-was.html" target="_blank">a fine story too</a>, although the prince didn't think so.<br />
<br />
Because the prince's minstrel wife tricked him into releasing the cat from the bag in which she was imprisoned, the prince cast his bride outside the the thick stone walls of his castle, to survive as best she could in the harsh winter of his land.<br />
<br />
But no sooner had the prince sent his minstrel wife away than he began to pine for her. "What ails you, my son?" asked the Queen. "Your hounds grow restive in their kennels and the hog roast shrivels on its spit."<br />
<br />
"Mother," said the prince, "If I had not sent my wife away, but put her in irons for a time, that would have avenged me just as well, would it not?"<br />
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"My son," said the Queen, "I wish you luck if you ever hope to receive love again from a woman you have cast in irons."<br />
<br />
"But mother, she tricked me, and released my foe from imprisonment!"<br />
<br />
"Child," said the Queen, "You released your foe yourself, and if you would punish any woman who can outwit you, then your bride has done well to flee these walls."<br />
<br />
The prince thought on his mother's words, and went to his father the King. "My Lord," said the prince, "I wish to ride out in search of my bride and bring her home."<br />
<br />
But the prince's father did not wish to lose his son a second time, after seven long years without him, while his son was imprisoned in a tower. "Son, you may ride out by day, but each night you must return to the castle by sunset."<br />
<br />
So each day the prince rode out in search of his minstrel bride, and each night he returned to the castle unsuccessful.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile it so happened that the cat, who was also the enchantress who had once imprisoned the prince in her tower, was roaming the prince's kingdom, and heard tell of the prince's quest to find his bride. The cat would return each night to whichever inn the prince's minstrel bride was to be found in earning her bread by playing her instrument, and would curl herself at her feet before the fire. The cat listened to the minstrel's songs of loss and yearning, but the cat kept her counsel, and did not tell the minstrel of the prince's change of heart, nor did she tell of the prince's daily quest to search his kingdom for his lost bride. Yet, whenever the minstrel talked of leaving the kingdom, the cat would dissuade her. For the cat had all the wiles of her feline nature as well as all the powers of an enchantress, and even though the prince had kept her trapped in a bag for seven long years, the cat had not tired of him yet.<br />
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And so the cat began to put her plan into action. She began to stalk the prince each day on his search for the minstrel, and would listen in to find out where he planned to search the following day. Then the cat would persuade the minstrel to go the next day to the place where the prince had searched the day before. And so the prince could never find the minstrel, though he searched his kingdom high and low.<br />
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At the same time, the cat began to boast to the minstrel about her wonderful cat life. While the minstrel struggled to sing for her supper, and sometimes went hungry in towns where music was not loved, the cat grew sleek and fat on the mice she caught beneath the inn's floorboards, and on the treats given to her by the innkeeper in exchange for the mouse-kill she presented. The cat would curl up, purring, by the fire, while the minstrel shivered in the farthest corner, and sleep on a fine pillow while the minstrel suffered hard floor.<br />
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"How I envy you," said the minstrel to the cat at last, "For although you come and go as you please, you are welcomed where I am shunned. I wish that you and I could change places."<br />
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"So be it," said the cat, "For I am not only a cat but also an enchantress, and need only your wish to make it so." And there was a crack, as of thunder, and the minstrel looked out through the eyes of the cat and saw her own human face looking back at her. The minstrel tried to protest that she had meant it only in jest, but when she tried to speak only mewing sounds came from her throat.<br />
<br />
"Only an enchantress can make a cat speak," said the enchantress, in the minstrel's own voice. "Enjoy your new life. I must go."<br />
<br />
The enchantress hurried from the inn and began her journey to find the prince. The minstrel-cat was left alone in the inn.<br />
<br />
The innkeeper picked up the cat by the scruff of her neck. "Enough lazing by the fire, cat," said the innkeeper, "Earn your keep and catch me some mice!" And the innkeeper threw the cat out into the street. The cat looked along the road and saw her own former body walking away in the distance, so instead of catching mice she followed the enchantress.<br />
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The enchantress walked through the night until dawn, then she cast herself down by the side of the road and lay quite still. Shortly after dawn the sound of horses' hooves approached, and the prince rode up. He saw the crumpled body of his minstrel wife by the side of the road and jumped down from his horse to attend to her. The enchantress groaned and held her head. When the prince spoke to her she tried to speak, but seemingly could not.<br />
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"My poor dear wife," cried the prince, "You have fallen and you are wounded!" And the prince lifted the enchantress gently onto his horse. Now when the cat-minstrel saw the prince she was so full of joy that she forgot she was not in her own body, and ran towards him. The prince saw only the cat enchantress who had one imprisoned him for seven years, and who he hated, so he grabbed the cat by the scruff of her neck and threw her far from him. Then he carried the woman he thought was his bride away on his horse, back to the safety of his castle, leaving his true bride behind.<br />
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The minstrel-cat wanted to sing of her pain, her longing and regret, but when she opened her mouth, all that came out was a cat's yowl. The enchantress, in exchange for the minstrel's help in freeing her from captivity, had exiled the minstrel from hearth and husband, then stolen her very minstel's art from her, leaving her with nothing. The enchantress had imprisoned her as surely as she had once imprisoned her prince, and now she had stolen him from her too. The minstrel-cat turned her limping paws towards the castle, for she had no heart left to go anywhere else.<br />
<br />
The prince had already returned with his bride to the castle, where he laid her upon her bed. His mother came to nurse her son's returned bride, but even though the enchantress did not speak, feigning sleep, the queen knew at once that this was not the same bride her son had first brought home. Yet her son would not heed his mother's words.<br />
<br />
Now it so happened that the queen had a secret herb garden outside the castle walls, where she went to be alone. Only the king, the prince, and the prince's minstrel bride knew about the garden and how to enter it. So the queen told her son to send his bride to her in her herb garden as soon as she awoke. The prince gave the message to his bride as she was rising and dressing. The enchantress did not know the way to the secret garden, so she walked out through the castle gate and began to search. <br />
<br />
The enchantress saw the minstrel-cat sitting outside the castle walls, staring up at the prince's chamber window. She offered her a deal: "Show me how to get into the queen's secret garden, and I will return you to your own body." The minstrel-cat turned and led the enchantress down a long passageway to a door. The enchantress eagerly opened the door and stepped through - only to fall into a cess-pool. For the minstrel-cat had tired of the enchantress's bargains, and preferred to remain a cat for the rest of her days than strike one more deal with the deceitful enchantress.<br />
<br />
The minstrel-cat jumped onto the top of the wall and down into the secret garden on the other side, where the queen was waiting on a bench As soon as the cat approached her, the queen picked her up and carried her into the castle to the prince. For she had known love for more years than her son, and she knew that it is not always with the eyes that we recognise our beloved.<br />
<br />
"This is your bride," said the queen. "She has been enchanted to look like a cat, but it is more than looks by which a good husband knows his true wife." The queen turned to the cat and spoke to her as if to a woman. "You have been wronged by my son, who has cast you from him, and who does not know you now. But if you will forgive him then I would be glad to welcome you back to this hearth." The cat twined herself about the legs of the queen, then she climbed onto the prince's lap. The prince stroked the cat that looked like the enchantress he hated, and as soon as the cat began to purr, he recognised the music in her voice as the music of his minstrel bride. He said her name out loud in recognition, and by naming her he broke the enchantress's spell. At once the prince found his true bride sitting on his lap, in her own true form.<br />
<br />
Outside in the cess pit a cat yowled as she struggled to swim out of the liquid filth in which she was mired. But none came to her aid, for none heard her cries over the shouts of joy and celebration that rang through the castle for the return of the prince's minstrel bride.<br />
<br />
THE END<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-48516529927757872412014-02-17T19:09:00.000+00:002014-02-17T19:09:43.437+00:00 Safety In Numbers: A Polyamory Primer<h2 class="MsoNormal">
<b></b><b>Tricity Vogue goes under the covers to find out how polyamorists
share their love around</b></h2>
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<b><strong>This article appeared in the March 2011 issue of <em>Erotic Review</em> and was republished on <a href="http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/">eroticreviewmagazine.com</a> on <a href="http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/articles/safety-in-numbers-a-polyamory-primer-2/" target="_blank">25 October 2012</a>.</strong></b><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span>
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I used to think having sex with more than one person at a
time was just bad behaviour. Not that this stopped me doing it. But the good
news is that it’s possible a slut and have ethics at the same time. There’s a
whole movement dedicated to the belief that you can have more than one significant
other without being a cheat, that ‘sex is nice and pleasure is good for you’,
that satisfying your desires is not a sin, and that it can even make you a
better person. </div>
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The movement is called polyamory, meaning “loving more than
one”, and it started in San Francisco in the sixties thanks to pioneers such as
sex-positive guru Dossie Easton, co-author of polyamorist bible <a href="http://www.dossieeaston.com/books.html" target="_blank"><i>The EthicalSlut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Adventures</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;">.
And it’s still alive and well, flourishing in the rain-soaked British Isles as
well as on the sun-soaked Californian coast.</span></div>
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Having your cake and eating it?</h1>
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Mae West famously said, “Too much of a good thing is
wonderful”. Polyamorous relationships are uncategorisable by their very nature,
coming in an infinite variety of combinations, but the one thing they all have
in common is that they’re not monogamous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This doesn’t mean that polyamorists are all commitment-phobes. Quite the
reverse, in fact. In the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of <a href="http://www.faqs.org/faqs/polyamory/faq/">alt.polyamory</a> serial monogamy is referred to as “trading people in and out like baseball
cards,” whereas polyamory means “not refusing commitments because something
better might come loping down the path” - in other words, more commitment
rather than less, because you’re committed to more than one relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Does that work in practice? Is it a utopian ideal, or a
nightmare-in-the-making? I’ve seen <i>Jules et Jim</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, I know that three-way relationships can result in at least one party
driving themselves off a cliff, at least they can if you’re French. Reading the
polyamorist manifesto was one thing, but to get an idea of what happens in the
real world (ie the rain-soaked British Isles), I decided to talk to some real
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polly and Amy are
partners, but they both have another girlfriend each, as well as several other
lovers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve both been
polyamorous for about two years. Richard Evans-Lacey is a sexual healer and
co-founder of <a href="http://thelovecult.org/">The Love Cult</a> with his female partner Max. He’s also an established psychotherapist with <a href="http://psychicplumbing.com/">a practice in Bethnal Green</a>.
</span></div>
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Amy told me one of the most galling misconceptions she’s
encountered from friends and acquaintances – that it won’t matter if she gets
dumped, because she’s got a spare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She points out that having two girlfriends also means you can get dumped
twice in one day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
polyamorous, or ‘poly’, people contend that they’re more romantic than
monogamists, not less.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s not
like sharing a cake,” says Amy, “it’s like having more than one child. Your
love expands.”</div>
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For Polly, it’s about identity and independence. She hates
the idea that in a monogamous relationship a bit of you belongs to the other
person. She doesn’t want anyone else to have rights over her. Polly knows about
monogamy; she was married to a man for ten years before discovering women and
polyamory in one go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though
she suffers far more from jealousy and insecurity in her multiple relationships
with women than she ever did in her marriage to a man, she believes that’s a
good thing, “Polyamoury is more appealing because you get to know people more
thoroughly. You can’t avoid things as easily, you have to deal with them. And
that’s revealing about yourself, and why you think the things you do.”</div>
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Richard always found it difficult to be monogamous. His
pattern for many years was to try and find someone who was perfect, in the hope
this would stop him wanting to wander. He would oscillate between being a tart,
free but lonely, and finding companionship but feeling trapped. Neither state
was satisfactory. What he really wanted was someone he could be with – a really
good friend – so that together they could have sex with other people. His
current partner told him it was okay for him to date other girls, but he still
felt trapped and resentful. “Surprisingly, the freeing thing for me is for her
to go off with other people. It makes her feel more attractive to me, because
other people want her, and I’m happier with her.”</div>
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<h1>
Does Your Mother Know?</h1>
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Coming out as a polyamorist is not unlike coming out as
gay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some ways, poly people are
even more marginalised in society, since civil partnerships can only be made
between two people, and you can only have one legal next-of-kin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Social systems are set up for singles
or couples, and polyamory is outside most people’s frame of reference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Office parties and weddings are
difficult,” says Polly. “You get an invitation for you plus one, so you either
have to get back to them and say, ‘Can I have a plus two?’ or go on your own.”</div>
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Amy decided to introduce her mother to both her girlfriends
at once. Polly and Amy’s other partner were both terrified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amy’s mother was bemused, but mostly
glad that all three of them seemed to be happy. She smiled sweetly, asked both
girlfriends what they did, then they all went shopping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polly hasn’t told her own mother yet,
partly because she has a closer relationship with her and speaks to her every
day, which makes it harder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
has told her sister: “It was hilarious. She said, ‘I know, I’ve been stalking
you on facebook.’”</div>
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Polly explains that although she doesn’t know anyone whose
parents have reacted badly, some friends are less accepting, often out of
concern. “They’re worried about your welfare – they think you must be being
taken for a ride.” Monogamous friends can be frightened by a more flexible
alternative to their own relationship model, particularly those who are married
with children, who only have one choice: divorce or stay together for life. Some
friends’ partners feel threatened: “You’re going out with that polyamorist,
she’s gonna brainwash you into sleeping with her.” </div>
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<h1>
“That’s all very modern”</h1>
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Polly tells me about the time her other partner was trying
to explain her love life to her father, who’s a vicar: “I suppose Polly is my
girlfriend, and Adam is my boyfriend.” “Oh, that’s all very modern,” replied
her father, “you’ve got one of each.”</div>
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Is polyamory really very modern, though? This morning,
coincidentally, I finished reading a novel by Colette, <i>Claudine en Ménage</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, written in 1902, which tells the story of the
20-year-old heroine’s ménage a trois with her 45-year-old husband and her
female lover. Claudine’s indulgent husband sets her up with a shag pad she can
take her lady friend, then moves in on Claudine’s lover himself. Our feisty
young heroine catches them at it and flounces off to her father’s country
house, where she sulks a bit before realising that the problems between her and
her husband are nothing to do with the other woman and everything to do with
bad communication between them; basically, the archetypal polyamorous ethos
that sexual experimentation can only work alongside openness and honesty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ah, but that’s fiction, you say. One
look at the author’s own life will reassure you that, if anything, she was even
more of an unapologetic polyamorist in life than she was in art.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
100-year-old polyamory may seem impressive, but the recently
published book <i>Sex At Dawn</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
(http://www.sexatdawn.com/ ) goes even further back. A lot further back. It
turns out prehistoric man lived in egalitarian groups that shared food, child
care, and, yes, sexual partners. So polyamory came before monogamy, which is,
in fact, the Johnny-come-lately of sexual mores, not the original model after
all (sorry, Adam and Eve). </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h1>
The Green Eyed Monster</h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jealousy is the elephant in the corner of every polyamorous
relationship. At least it would be the elephant in the corner if polyamorists
behaved like most people and avoided talking about the aspects of their relationships
that discomfited them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But poly
people are unafraid of tackling their relationship insecurities head on. Or
rather, they might be afraid, but they do it anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some poly people don’t have a problem with jealousy, while
others have to work at it – but there are a whole host of community support
structures in place to help them, including conferences and away weekends such
as <a href="http://opencon.eu/">OpenCon</a><a href="http://opencon.eu/"></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amy explains the poly line on jealousy
by quoting Dossie Easton, ‘the goddess of polyamory’, at a relationship
workshop: “Treat jealousy like flu. Eat ice cream, wrap yourself up in a
blanket, try and work out how you got it. Then work out how to make yourself
stronger so you don’t catch it again.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Polyamorist ‘London Faerie’ says “A key thing for me
about poly is the way it enables us to grow emotionally and become more
conscious. For example dealing with jealousy helps many people to learn what is
underneath these feelings ('not good enough', feeling left out etc).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through this journey we often become
stronger, get to know ourselves better and become more emotionally adept in a
host of different situations - not just our love relationships but also work,
with children and so on.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h1>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Making
up your own rules</span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The poly scene has co-opted a word for the obverse of jealousy –
compersion. It means feeling happy that your lover is happy doing something
without you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, you
might be sitting in watching TV, feeling glad that your lover is out on a date
with someone else, especially if they’ve been a bit down lately, and being
asked out has cheered them up. It’s not a word with an exclusively polyamorous
meaning, as it can also apply to parents enjoying their children’s happiness,
but it’s a concept that poly people find very useful to counteract the
negativity of jealousy. But then, they’re a pretty positive bunch all round.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">After reading and talking about polyamory, I’ve come away with the
impression of a group of people who are thoughtful, fair-minded, diplomatic,
and, most of all, honest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not all
their relationships work out, but they think it’s worthwhile to keep trying,
because they believe in what they’re doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polyamorists are pioneers, explorers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And whether or not we follow them down
the path they’re taking, the things they’re finding out at the coalface of
relationship experimentation can be applied to all bonds, whether sexual or
not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, if, as
polyamorists do, you believe that intimate relationships are equally valid
whether or not they include sex, then more or less all of us are polyamorous in
one sense. Anyone who’s got a close friend who knows them inside out, and who
they’d drop anything for, has already got a relationship just as important as
the one with the person they happen to have sex with. That’s if you look at it
from outside the monogamous romantic model that most of us have accepted
without question from childhood.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Living outside of monogamy, whether in an open relationship or a full-on
polyamorous concatenation, is neither better nor worse than choosing to be
faithful to one partner, as far as the people I spoke to are concerned, it’s
just what works for them best right now, and they don’t judge anyone else’s
choices – not even those of the people they love. Especially not those of the
people they love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve come a long
way from thinking that having sex with lots of people is a form of bad
behaviour – if you’re going to do it properly, you need integrity. And the one
thing that strikes me about the poly people I’ve talked to is that I’d feel
very safe getting into bed with all of them.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: LucidaGrande; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-6037567399125268592014-02-05T01:10:00.001+00:002014-02-27T23:39:17.917+00:00Room To Swing A Cat: A Fairy Tale__________________________________<br />
<br />
There was once a prince who was held captive in a tower by an enchantress for seven years, until he was rescued by a lady minstrel. It's <a href="http://tricityvogue.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-cat-in-bag-fairy-story-prince-was.html" target="_blank">a fine story</a>, but this story begins where that one ends.<br />
<br />
The prince was grateful to the minstrel, and loved to listen to her songs, so he asked her to return with him to his own kingdom. The minstrel agreed, in part because the prince was very beautiful and she loved to look upon him, and in part because she loved to journey to strange new lands, and she had never visited the prince's kingdom before on any of her travels.<br />
<br />
The prince's kingdom was far away in the mountains, but the minstrel's songs made their journey pass quickly. At last they arrived at a harsh, cold land, where wolves roamed by night, and vagabonds by day. But the prince's castle had high walls of thick stone, and nothing could get inside once the door was barred.<br />
<br />
The prince was welcomed back with much joy and feasting by the king and queen his parents, and by all their people. The minstrel was toasted for returning their beloved prince, and all listened with joy to her songs. Outside the snow fell, and the blizzard howled, but inside the fire in the great hearth never went out.<br />
<br />
The prince asked the minstrel to be his bride, and the minstrel, who had travelld far and seen many things, but had never before had a hearth to call her own, accepted. But on the night before her wedding, the minstrel remembered the cat imprisoned in a bag that her prince had brought back from his tower of captivity. The minstrel did not know the cat was an enchantress in shape shifting form, she only knew that the cat had once scratched her, and in her fury she had spun the cat around her head and flung it through the window of the prince's tower.<br />
<br />
The minstrel was superstitious. She would not enter into marriage without putting right her past wrongs, so she went to the room at the top of the castle where the prince had left the cat in the bag, unlocked the door with the tool she kept in her instrument case for such purposes, and tried to untie the silver chain that held the bag fast. But the silver chain was enchanted, and burned her hands. The minstrel dropped the bag with a cry.<br />
<br />
A voice came from inside the bag. "Only the prince can untie the silver chain."<br />
<br />
The minstrel was alarmed. "But you are a cat - how can you talk?"<br />
<br />
"I may be a cat, but I am also an enchantress," the bag replied, "And I have been bound by my own enchantment."<br />
<br />
So the minstrel went to the prince on the eve of their wedding, even though it is bad luck for the betrothed to see one another on that day, and asked him to release the cat.<br />
<br />
"I will never let the cat out of the bag," he replied. "She is an enchantress, and she kept me prisoner for seven years."<br />
<br />
"She may be an enchantress," replied the minstrel, "But she is also a cat." Like all musicians, the minstrel was fond of cats, for cats, like musicians, come and go as they please. But this cat could not go anywhere.<br />
<br />
But the prince would not be moved, so the minstrel returned to the cat and told her that the prince refused to set her free. The minstrel asked the cat, "Will you at least forgive me for throwing you through the tower window after you scratched my face?"<br />
<br />
"I will not give you my forgiveness until I am free," replied the cat. So the minstrel went to be wed with her past wrong unforgiven.<br />
<br />
But after the wedding night she forgot all about her former misdeeds, and seven years went past while the minstrel enjoyed the warmth of her hearth, and the cat remained trapped in the bag. The minstrel's instrument, too, lay neglected in a corner for seven years, until, one day, the minstrel came to dust the forgotten room at the top of the castle.<br />
<br />
Picking up the instrument, she tuned it and began to play and sing her favourite song. But her voice was hollow and her playing was jarring on her ears. She had forgotten her art.<br />
<br />
"A minstrel does not have a hearth," said a voice. "As soon as you acquired a hearth of your own, you ceased to be a minstrel."<br />
<br />
"Who is there?" asked the minstrel, for having a hearth and a husband to tend had dulled her memory.<br />
<br />
"I am the cat you threw through the window of a tower and abandoned for seven years trapped inside a bag. But I am also an enchantress, and if you help me escape my prison, I will return to you your minstrel's art."<br />
<br />
"But I cannot unfasten the silver chain," said the minstrel. "Only the prince my husband can do that."<br />
<br />
"Then you must find a way to make him release me," said the cat, "Are you not his wife?"<br />
<br />
So the minstrel went away and thought. Then she remembered she had a second trade, and that was to open doors that people needed opening. Surely, then, she could also find a way to open a bag? Or had she lost that gift too?<br />
<br />
Presently, she began to complain to her husband that her private chamber was too small. "There is not enough room in here to swing a cat," she protested. Day after day she repeated her complaint until the prince, in frustration, cried, "Bring me a cat, and I will show you that there is!"<br />
<br />
Now it happened that in the prince's land there were no cats, only dogs and wolves, and the prince knew this. But he had forgotten the bag in the high room of his castle. The minstrel went to fetch the bag, and whispered to the cat as she carried it downstairs to her private chamber, "Make your tail wet and slippery."<br />
<br />
The minstrel presented the bag to the prince. "There is a cat in this bag. Very likely it is dead. But you can still swing it and show me."<br />
<br />
The prince did not want to untie the silver chain, but he did not want to lose an argument with his wife either. "You will not dare," taunted the minstrel, "Because you know this room is too small to swing a cat in." And so she went on.<br />
<br />
The prince could stand it no longer, so in fury he untied the silver chain and pulled the cat out of the bag by the scruff of its neck. He grabbed it by its tail and swung it around his head in a full circle. "See?" he said triumphantly, "There is room to swing a cat!"<br />
<br />
But just then the cat's wet tail slipped through the prince's fingers, and the cat sailed through the window to freedom. "Thank you, minstrel," called a voice from outside. "Your powers will be returned to you."<br />
<br />
The prince looked at the minstrel and knew she had tricked him. "Leave," he said, "And take your instrument with you. You are no longer my wife."<br />
<br />
So the minstrel was cast out of the castle with nothing but her instrument, and the door was barred against her. The hearth continued to burn inside, but now she was on the outside of the high walls of thick stone, with the vagabonds and the wolves.<br />
<br />
The cat was waiting for her outside the door. "Let us travel together," said the cat, "For we are kindred spirits, you and I." And so the minstrel and the cat set off along the long road side by side.<br />
<br />
Presently the minstrel asked the cat, "Did you know that I would be banished from my hearth for helping you?"<br />
<br />
"It was what you wanted," said the cat.<br />
<br />
"But I loved my hearth," protested the minstrel.<br />
<br />
"You did," replied the cat, "But you loved your minstrel's art more, and longed for its return. Taking away your hearth was the only way to give you back your gift."<br />
<br />
"You have used me to serve your own ends," said the minstrel to the cat, "But I forgive you. The hearth warmed me, but it burned with its own fire that did not belong to me. I am glad to have my own gift returned."<br />
<br />
"I know you are glad," said the cat, "For you are a minstrel and I am an enchantress, whatever other forms we may take on our travels, and we are kindred spirits, you and I."<br />
<br />
"And now do you forgive me for throwing you through the window of the prince's tower, seven long years ago?" asked the minstrel.<br />
<br />
"I will forgive you when you find me food and a warm place to sleep," said the cat.<br />
<br />
And the minstrel smiled a wry smile. Now, finally, she knew the cat's nature, and knew that forgiveness would always be one more favour away, because they were kindred spirits, the cat and she.<br />
<br />
_______<br />
<br />
The End.<br />
_______Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-91576251078573706092014-01-30T00:47:00.001+00:002014-02-27T23:34:08.849+00:00The Cat In The Bag: A Fairy Tale________________________________ <br />
<br />
A prince was held captive in a tower. His captor was an enchantress who wished to gaze on his beauty. The prince could never leave the tower, unless led by his captor on an enchanted sliver chain. To all the world, it looked as if the prince was leading his pet cat by a silver chain, but the cat was the enchantress's shape-shifting disguise, and in truth there was a manacle around the prince's wrist, that burned him if he pulled away.<br />
<br />
One deep midwinter, a lady minstrel came to the village near to the prince's tower. From his window the prince heard the minstrel sing and play. He begged the enchantress to take him down to the village so he could see the minstrel. So the enchantress manacled the prince's wrist with the silver chain, and they descended the tower.<br />
<br />
The prince became so rapt with the minstrel's song that he didn't feel the pain at his wrist when the enchantress tugged his silver chain. Blisters and burn marks covered his wrist before he reluctantly got up to leave. The enchantress saw this and was displeased.<br />
<br />
The next morning, the prince watched the minstrel depart the village. She would not return until next midwinter. A twelvemonth went by, and the burns on the prince's wrist left a scar behind. The enchantress was angry that her captive's disobedience had marred his beauty.<br />
<br />
Then one evening the prince heard the minstrel's song once more, and knew she had returned. He begged the enchantress to allow him to go down to the village to see her, but the enchantress refused. Instead, she shut the prince in his tower and went alone.<br />
<br />
The minstrel saw a cat approaching, and did not know it was the enchantress in disguise. She moved to stroke the cat, and the cat clawed her face. The minstrel was furious, so she picked up the cat by its tail and swung it around her head. She let go, and the cat flew high into the air and straight through the window of the prince's tower.<br />
<br />
All the villagers saw and reported all, and those they reported to reported it again, until all the land knew the story, and this was the origin of the name "cat fight" for a fight between women, and also of the saying "enough room to swing a cat."<br />
<br />
Then the minstrel's anger left her, and she feared she had done a bad deed, for she had thrown the animal inside a tower from which it could not escape. So she resolved to go to the tower and release the cat.<br />
<br />
The prince, meanwhile, acted swiftly when the enchantress, in cat form, came flying through his window. He leapt from his bed with his pillow case in his hand, and caught the cat inside. Then he bound the silver chain that had been his own leash around the top of the pillowcase, so the cat was trapped inside. If the cat tried to claw at the chain, the chain burned her.<br />
<br />
The price carried his own captor down the stairs to the door, just as the minstrel picked the lock with a tool from her instrument case. The minstrel had this tool because all musicians must have at least one other trade if they are to survive from one midwinter to the next, and the minstrel's other trade was opening locked doors for people who wanted them opened. In this case, the prince wanted his door opened, but the minstrel didn't know that. She was only looking for the cat.<br />
<br />
The prince and the minstrel met on the doorstep. "Thank you for letting me out of my prison," he said, "Will you play for me again? All year I have heard your songs inside my head."<br />
<br />
"I will gladly play for a man so beautiful, if you will let me look upon you as I play," said the minstrel.<br />
<br />
"So be it," said the prince, as he began to walk away from the tower where he had been imprisoned for seven years. The minstrel saw the bag he carried over his shoulder squirm and writhe, and she knew the cat was inside.<br />
<br />
"Wait," said the minstrel, "Won't you release the cat from captivity first?"<br />
<br />
"No," replied the prince, "I will never let the cat out of the bag."<br />
<br />
<br />
_______<br />
The End<br />
_______Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-62842675546210479752013-10-15T12:46:00.000+01:002014-03-13T09:58:40.267+00:00Reviews for Calamitous Liaisons<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here's a collection of reviews and audience feedback for my solo ukulele show, <i>Calamitous Liaisons</i>:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b><span style="font-size: large;">Calamitous Liaisons at Wilton's Music Hall, London, 4 March 2014</span></b></u></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"The opening song in Tricity’s performance was 'The Men I've Had Before', a fast paced, playful number about, well... the men she’d had before. I’d listened to the song already, so my excitement was piqued well before she appeared from behind the red curtain; first came the eyelashes, then the woman herself!<br /><br />Tricity seamlessly guided her audience through the trials and tribulations of a colourful love life, using only her ukulele, fabulous voice and downright charm. Her original songs feature stories that are easily relatable to anyone who’s ever had a few romantic woes of their own, but are told with far more candour than most of us dare. <br /><br />I thoroughly enjoyed Calamitous liaisons, and found it to be wickedly funny, full of energy and wholly enchanting....."<br /><i>Nicola Grant, The Mahogany Bar, Wilton's Music Hall</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Loved last night. Still humming Ladylove for some strange reason. Very catchy."</span></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">R Sykes </span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">"So very good it earns T.V. the forgiveness she'll need if it turns out she lied outrageously when she said it was the last outing for this show. So very glad I made it if she was, in fact, being as grippingly honest as her performance!</span>"<br />
<i>Caroline Grannell</i><br />
<br />
"The dark and atmospheric Mahogany Bar was a perfect setting for this deliciously naughty frolic with the ever delightful and glamorous Tricity Vogue. <br />
<br />
Entering from her boudoir behind a red curtain Tricity began with a saucy tale of her various conquest’s Nebuchadnezzars and get-jiggy skills! This prompted many a blush and nervous giggle but certainly broke the ice! After a quick swig from the wine bottle she then led us sometimes gently, sometimes poignantly, often riotously but always with immense charm and wit through her many calamitous romantic capers. The final song went a little off-piste with a tale of giving Lady Love a whirl! I, for one, sincerely hope this is a path she chooses not to follow as it would surely limit material for an equally entertaining follow up album (or perhaps not ;) )!<br />
<br />
Calamitous Liaisons, another triumph from the original, beautiful and most talented Ms Tricity Vogue! Do buy the album and enjoy the rest of her romantic escapades.<i>"</i><br />
<i>Tim Jefford </i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b><span style="font-size: large;">Calamitous Liaisons at the Coach & Horses Dining Room, Soho, 16 February 2014</span></b></u></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span data-measureme="1"><span class="null">"This was such great fun - the intimate setting upstairs at the Coach and Horses added to the atmosphere of the show, and Tricity's Calamitous Liaisons were by turns risque, laugh out loud funny and painfully familiar to anyone who ever felt unlucky in love. As the show ended with stunning new song "Ladylove," I felt we had been steered through troubled waters back to port in steady and capable hands. Can't wait for the next instalment!"<br /><i>Gill Wilkinson & Chris Westwood</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-measureme="1"><span class="null">"Witty, honest, elegantly
refined and sometimes exceptionally rude, like being flashed by the
Queen during the amuse bouche. Warning: Not suitable for first dates."</span></span><br />
<i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null">Ahmed, Flaneur & Engineer</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null"> </span></span></span></i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null">"We had a wonderful night out at Tricity's one
woman show "Calamitous Liaisons". Great songs and entertaing anecdotes ensure a very amusing journey through the life of Tricity Vogue."</span></span></span><br />
<i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null">Steven
Tagg-Randall, Video Archivist</span></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null">"Intimate surroundings in a fab little pub in Soho, with Peter O'Toole's stool - would have happily paid extra if I'd known I was going to be in the same room as celebrity furniture! Intelligently crafted songs beautifully sung. Tricity plucked and strummed the ukulele creating a wave of audible honey over the assembled punters. Fun frivolous and frolicking in all the right places, it could have only been an evening with the fabulous one and only Tricity Vogue.<i>"</i></span></span></span><i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null"><br />Zoe Denham </span></span></span></i><br />
<i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null"> </span></span></span></i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null"> </span></span></span><br />
<span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null">"Charming, sharp, witty and fun!"</span></span></span><i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null"><br />Michael Barry </span></span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null">"This was a wonderful evening - charming, witty, and moving. I smiled and laughed throughout and was left wanting more..."</span></span></span><br />
<i><span data-measureme="1"><span class="null"><span class="null">Charlotte Ginsborg
</span> </span></span></i><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b><span style="font-size: large;">Calamitous Liaisons at the Coach & Horses Dining Room, Soho, 20 October 2013</span></b></u><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span><br /> <br />"Beautifully naughty, disarming and funny, and the songs stayed with me for a week. (Ok it hasn't been a week but I'm confident. Ladylove was in my head as I cycled around today and I was itching to listen to it. I haven't had that about any tune at all for years to the point where I was wondering if I'd ever feel like that again, so thanks)." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Rosa Conrad, musician</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I raise my glass to Tricity Vogue for charming, alarming, sustaining and entertaining me! What a lovely night with a fabulously talented and beguiling sassy, strumming songbird. This liaison, for me, was far from calamitous xxx" </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Lana Shelley, musician</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Loved the doodahs tonight. Let me know when you do them again because, dear me, it all works."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@mister_meredith via twitter</i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Lovely night! @tricityvogue was fabulous sans mic & on great form! Great venue at coach & horses- All Veggie Pub!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@AlexCarter001 via twitter</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Refreshing, cheeky, fun, and utterly original, the glamorous Tricity Vogue delivers a fabulous night's entertainment."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Alex Carter, singer </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b><br /></b></u></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><u><b><span style="font-size: large;">Calamitous Liaisons at the Coach & Horses Dining Room, Soho,
13 October 2013</span></b></u><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">"I accepted Tricity Vogue's invitation to come into her boudoir, and I did not regret it. With delightful tunes and soulful voice, she took us all on a beguiling ride of heartbreak and ecstasy."</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><i>Audience member </i></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">"Hilarious and intimate, like my insides are being tickled"</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><i>Sahar, milliner</i></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"> </span></span></span>"I loved the show: a scintillating and captivating performance with very
memorable songs."<i> </i></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Richard Link, composer</i> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Just wanted to say thank you for a lovely time. You touched us. We
laughed and we cried. You are one talented lady."<i> </i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Audience member</i><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">"As much fun as you could hope to have on a Sunday
evening with your clothes on or off or with a ukelele and not get arrested.</span><span lang="EN-US"> Music and passion always in fashion with Tricity
Vogue's heart warming lust for life and love reminiscences."</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"></span></span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">Pete Saunders, pianist</span></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Great way to be amused early Sunday Evening. Tricity's infectious humour
works perfectly in this intimate dining room and her calamitous liaisons seem
to ring a bell with most of the audience. Raucous applause was well deserved,"<i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Coach and Horses Landlord</i><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;">"Thank you so much for a brilliantly
entertaining night, such funny & charming songs & stories. We went
home humming & happy!"</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="screen-name"><i>@em_threadneedle via twitter</i></span> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"It was really special. I don't think you could have picked a more
perfect venue to debut your show. When I saw it was unmic'd, I was worried how it would come across, but it
couldn't have been any more suitable. Your voice is exceptional - it was such a
great experience to hear your voice live, especially as I already know most of
the songs. The show felt very intimate, you had everyone so spellbound,
my mind didn't wander at any point. I actually forgot I was holding a wee in for
over an hour haah..."</span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Audience member</i> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"How wonderful to see the delectable Tricity Vogue in an intimate show
with riotously witty songs that also include true soulfulness and poignancy."<i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Audience member</i><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]">"Charming and warm, Tricity Vogue puts humour and hilarity into heartache."</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"><i>Audience member</i></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0].[0]"></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span lang="EN-US"></span></i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"A really warm and uplifiting show. Stopped me mithering over my own
stupid relationship for 5 minutes! Hope there are plenty more West End outings
for C.L."</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span lang="EN-US">Audience member</span></i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span lang="EN-US"></span></i></span></span><span data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3].[0]"></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".r[5q4u8].[1][4][1]{comment208833002625841_209011392608002}.[0].{right}.[0].{left}.[0].[0].[0][3]"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b><span lang="EN-US">Calamitous Liaisons at Bom-Bane's Cafe, Brighton, on Thursday 12 September 2013</span></b></u></span></span><br />
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</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Far from a calamitous liaison. Our evening with
you was a sweet delight. Lovely to meet you in such a fabulous setting"</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@clivejholland via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Thank you for a fantastic evening, I am still
smiling & singing about pineapples! Hope our paths cross again soon."</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@emmiebobo via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Oh what a delightful evening I had. I'm off to work now with
a smile on my face singing the pineapple song. @tricityvogue #unmissable"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@clivejholland via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Great
performance. Your lyrics are poignant, funny, profound, and rhyme in unexpected
witty ways. Congratulations."</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Audience member </i></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><u><b><span lang="EN-US">Calamitous Liaisons at Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 1-18 August 2013</span></b></u></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">“Sporting boudoir chic, swigging from a bottle of
white and exuding conversational warmth, Tricity makes a virtuoso virtue out of
the ukulele’s simplicity. Charming, accomplished and thoroughly loveable. ‘Calamitous
Liaisons’ soars.” ****</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Ben
Walters, Time Out London <a href="http://www.timeout.com/london/cabaret/tricity-vogue-calamitous-liaisons-review" target="_blank">Read the full review here</a></i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US">“We’ve all had our share of love stories gone bad,
but not all of us have the talent to turn those heartbreaks into a delightful
cabaret show.” </span><span lang="EN-US">****</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span>
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Delphine
Dallison, SGFringe <a href="http://sgfringe.com/2013/08/05/tricity-vogue-calamitous-liaisons/" target="_blank">Read the full review here </a></i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">After seeing the show, I did feel as though maybe you'd gone through my
diaries and written songs about me!
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>audience member</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Calamitous Liaisons - sly and saucy, melodically inventive,
emotionally supple. Her best show yet?"<span class="screen-name"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="screen-name"><i>@not_television via twitter</i></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Charming, sexy, blithe and smart. And plays a ukulele. Go!"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@TimBenzie via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"TRICITY VOGUE'S kick ass show about her delicious love life.
'Calamitous Liaisons' #hotticket @edfringe"<span class="screen-name"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="screen-name"><i>@RusseLucas via twitter</i></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"MUST SEE SHOW - @tricityvogue's Calamitous Liaisons 6pm The
Counting House. Marvelous songs, fast paced, funny AND poignant. FREE!
#edfringe"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@</i><span class="screen-name"><i>heidibangtidy via twitter</i></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Cannot sufficiently recommend @tricityvogue Calamitous Liaisons.
Wry, wistful, funny and warm and musically exquisite. Go see!"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@</i><span class="screen-name"><i>DustyLimits via twitter</i></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Me and my girlfriend loved your acts at the fringe,
really fantastic; every one should see them!!"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@heloisewithanh via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Today I see and enjoy very much @tricityvogue at The Counting
House, she plays and sing so well and also she wear amazing red shoes"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@La_Harlotta via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"The new show from <a href="https://twitter.com/i/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Ftricityvogue%3Frefsrc%3Demail&sig=6ad14fed52eec490eb152128473e85791c00c82a&uid=27353810&iid=457c15e5-9abe-4ee1-b13c-efc1b634da2d&nid=4+1271&t=1"><span style="color: #3272a1; text-decoration: none;">@tricityvogue</span></a>
'Calamitous Liaisons' at the <a href="https://twitter.com/i/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3D%23edfringe&sig=0ffcf45de717296b50f455522807730e0cf046c3&uid=27353810&iid=457c15e5-9abe-4ee1-b13c-efc1b634da2d&nid=4+1269&t=1"><span style="color: #3272a1; text-decoration: none;">#edfringe</span></a>
is a joy. Terrific songs - funny, clever & sometimes touching. See it"<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626;"><i>@KeithJ_gmb via twitter</i></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"You'd be batty to not spend a portion of your #EdFringe weekend
in the company of @tricityvogue and her Calamitous Liaisons show. Go go go!"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@JohnnySetlist via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Delightful show from @tricityvogue Calamitous Liaisons, The
Counting House 5pm. Mae West meets a ukulele!"</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@Liberty_Sweet via twitter</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Very jolly, very friendly, and just a little bit rude.
Can't ask more than that."</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Catherine Monelle via edfringe.com</i> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">"We really
loved @tricityvogue's Calamitous Liaisons. Fantastic songs from a fantastically
witty and talented woman."</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <i> </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>@madelinedances via twitter</i></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span lang="EN-US"></span><i><span lang="EN-US"></span></i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US"> </span></i></span>
</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-83758338216911820272013-07-23T11:36:00.001+01:002014-03-06T20:55:47.731+00:00Bad Girls At The Ball: Debutantes Gone Wrong<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Bad Girls at the Ball</b></span><br />
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<b>First published in <a href="http://eroticreviewmagazine.com/">Erotic Review</a> in November 2011 </b></div>
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<b>As the <a href="http://bluestockingssociety.wordpress.com/">Blue Stocking Society</a> prepare for their <a href="http://bluestockingssociety.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/the-blue-stocking-society-presents-the-bad-debutante-ball/">Bad DebutanteBall</a> on 23 November 2011, co-founder Tricity Vogue hunts down some real-life bad debs.</b></div>
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A debutante is a young lady coming out into society for the
first time. Until the 1950s, the female offspring of the British social elite
were kept under wraps at home or in all-girl schools until it was time to
unleash them on the marriage market, like prize heifers. And then they were
dolled up in white dresses and paraded for the duration of the Season, by the
end of which, hopefully, they’d be snapped up by a husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The social season ran from April to
July (so as not to clash with the hunting season), and smart families would
take a house in London to attend a round of luncheons, tea parties, and, of
course, balls. </div>
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The Debutante Season kicked off with the presentation of the
young ladies at court. Only a lady who’d been previously presented herself
could present a debutante to the monarch (to keep out the riff-raff), and the
dress code was rigorous. Strictly white dresses only, or, at a push, ivory or
pale pink, with three feathers in the hair, to represent the crest of the
Prince of Wales. Young ladies took punishing lessons in the court curtsey, a
particularly convoluted manoeuvre, which also had to be conducted at the same
time as walking backwards out of the royal presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Victoria’s reign, the heyday of the debutante, the girls
and their escorts had to wait for hours in drafty corridors without food or
water, or access to the lavatory, for the privilege of kneeling before the
queen and kissing her hand. The ordeal sounds uncannily similar to today’s
Britain’s Got Talent auditions.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Decline And Fall Of The Debutante Ball</span></div>
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It was the current queen who ended court presentations in
1958, claiming the practice was undemocratic. Her less tactful sister Princess
Margaret was said to remark <span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"We had to put a stop to it - every tart in
London was getting in." Undaunted, the society mothers came up with an
alternative ritual. At the annual Queen Charlotte’s ball, which traditionally kicked
off the season, a bevy of debutantes, pulling on ribbons, towed a lavish tiered
cake into the room. An obscure European royal was installed next to the cake on
the dais, and the rest of the debutantes approached the platform and dropped
their curtseys. The presence of the token royal was of course to deflect the
all-too-obvious pagan implications of virginal girls paying obeisance before a
huge phallic object, which they would later eat.</span></div>
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Coming-out pageantry corralled high society young ladies
down the track their elders had decreed for them: straight out of finishing
school and into marriage, after one brief summer of shopping for partners. The
eligible young men lined up for them were known as ‘debs’ delights’; although
girls approached the romantic possibilities of the season with their eyes open.
In her book <i>Last Curtsey</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Curtsey-Debutantes-Fiona-MacCarthy/dp/0571228593">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Curtsey-Debutantes-Fiona-MacCarthy/dp/0571228593</a>)
debutante-turned-literary biographer Fiona MacCarthy records the secret
acronyms debs devised between themselves for their various beaux: MSC (“Makes
Skin Creep”), NSIT (“Not Safe In Taxis”) and VVSITPQ ("Very, Very Safe In
Taxis, Probably Queer"). At some point, a deb would have to decide which
of the acronyms she was prepared to settle for, because the season wasn’t about
romance so much as family business: make a good match, become a society hostess
and beget the next generation of social elite. But of course, there have always
been women too wilful, or too nonconformist, to accept their fate. And when
debutantes went bad, they </span><i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
went bad. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Debutantes Gone Bad</span></div>
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The most spectacularly bad debutante has to be Rose Dugdale.
After attending Miss Ironside's School for Girls in Kensington, and a finishing
school abroad, the millionaire’s daughter was presented at court in 1958, then
given a debutante ball in 1959, which she described as "one of those
pornographic affairs which cost about what 60 old-age pensioners receive in six
months." By the 70s she’d become a revolutionary socialist, donating her
share of the family fortune to the poor. But she didn’t stop there. In 1973 she
and her lover were arrested for robbing her own family home, and stealing
paintings and silverware worth £82,000, to raise the money for the IRA. Dugdale
received a suspended sentence, as the judge thought it was unlikely she’d
re-offend, but she immediately set off for Ireland to join the IRA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1974 she went on a helicopter
bombing raid, dropping bombs in milk churns, and appeared on “Wanted” posters
across Britain and Ireland.</div>
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Dugdale then turned her hand to art theft once more, this
time with a violent twist. She and three other IRA members broke into Sir
Alfred Beit’s home, Russborough House in County Wicklow, pistol-whipped, bound
and gagged him and his wife, and stole IR£8 million worth of old masters,
including works by Gainsborough, Rubens, Vermeer and Goya. Their ransom note
demanded IR£500,000 and the release of two convicted IRA bombers on hunger
strike in Brixton Prison. The paintings were recovered in a car boot in County
Cork and Dugdale was arrested and charged with both the helicopter bombing and
the robbery. Dugdale pleaded "proudly and incorruptibly guilty", and
was sentenced to nine years imprisonment. Dugdale was pregnant at the time of
her trial, and gave birth to a son in Limerick prison in 1974. The father was
Eddie Gallagher, an IRA member later jailed for twenty years for kidnapping. In
1978 Dugdale and Gallagher married inside Limerick Prison. It was a far cry
from the match her parents hoped for when they orchestrated her coming-out
season twenty years earlier.</div>
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A dangerous liaison with a freedom-fighter is not every
girl’s cup of tea, but other debutantes’ rebellions against the sexual mores of
their times seem quite mild today, even if they once rocked the boat
dangerously. Fiona MacCarthy, biographer of Lord Byron, appalled her family by
working as a journalist (becoming a 60s poster-girl for The Guardian’s female
writers campaign: ‘Should women have teeth?’) then marrying ‘working class
hero’ and master metal worker David Mellor and moving to Sheffield, a debutante
desert. Their disapproval was ironic, considering that MacCarthy is the
great-granddaughter of bricklayer-made-good “Concrete Bob”, the founder of
construction company Robert McAlpine & Sons. But by the 1950s two
generations was all it took to acquire social respectability. MacCarthy was
among the last debutantes presented at court in 1958, and remembers that she wasn’t
the only rebel: many of her contemporaries were boat-rockers too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"A few fast girls were quite
notorious. People were scared of getting pregnant then because it was a
terrible scandal, but a couple of girls in my year did.” Fellow debutante
Nicolette Powell married pop star Georgie Fame, and Sally Croker-Poole married
the Aga Khan, while MacCarthy’s “docile” friend Teresa Hayter became an
outspoken International Marxist, penning in 1971 her book <i>Hayter of the
Bourgeoisie.</i></div>
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My own favourite bad debutante dates from further back.
Leonora Carrington was presented at court to George V and subjected to a
debutante ball at the Ritz. Exactly how much she detested the ritual is evident
from her surrealist short story <a href="http://www.redtidebluefire.com/debutante.html"><i>The Debutante</i></a><span style="font-style: normal;">, in which the heroine
persuades a hyena to take her place at her coming-out ball. Despite several
school expulsions, Carrington seemed on course for a respectable future until
she went to London’s first surrealist exhibition in 1936 and fell in love with
Max Ernst on the canvas. She met the (married) artist in person at a dinner
party and promptly eloped with him. Carrington family gossip recalled that “she
went to Paris to become an artist’s model” but this belittles the truth.
Leonora Carrington ran away to paint, and to become a surrealist in her own
right. </span></div>
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Carrington and Ernst hung out in Paris with Picasso ("A
typical Spaniard - he thought all women were in love with him,") Dali (“He
certainly wasn't extraordinary then: he looked like everyone else. It was only
when he went to America that he started looking extraordinary,") and Miro
(“He gave me some money one day and told me to get him some cigarettes. I gave
it back and said if he wanted cigarettes, he could bloody well get them himself.“)
The couple then moved to Provence, where photographer Lee Miller captured their
mutual creative idyll as they painted each other in the sunshine. Until the
Nazis turned up. Then Ernst was interned as an enemy alien, Carrington ran away
to Spain, had a mental breakdown, and ended up in an asylum. Her family sent
her old nanny to fetch her, but Carrington gave them the slip a second time, by
marrying a Mexican diplomat friend to secure a visa to the States. Dissolving
her marriage of convenience in New York, Carrington headed down to Mexico,
where she found the perfect environment to paint. She also met new artistic
inspirations: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (“I liked her better than him”), and
her close friend Remedios Varo. Her family remained ignorant of her
international reputation as a leading surrealist painter until four years
before her death in May 2011.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Modern-Day Debutantes </span></div>
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Leonora Carrington went to the other side of the world to
escape her own debutante fate, but ironically, while the coming-out ritual is
long gone in England, it’s thriving on her adoptive continent. The British
debutante tradition struggled on through the swinging 60s and female
emancipation, becoming less to do with match-making and more to do with charity
fundraising, until it petered out in the UK in the 80s. Meanwhile, in Puerto
Rico the debutante is still oppressively alive and well, as I discovered at a
dinner party a few months ago, when my Puerto Rican dinner companion regaled me
with stories of her absurdly lavish ball gown, and ceremonial grand entrance
over an ornamental bridge, into the arms of her appointed male escorts. She may
have looked like a princess on her big day, but the ritual was anathema to my
lesbian friend.</div>
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Nor is the tradition extinct in Australia. Chatting to
burlesque performer Tallulah Mockingbird at the book launch of <i>The Domestic
Burlesque</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, I heard about
her debutante experience down under. “I remember feeling like a very awkward
teenager rather than a beautiful young woman being released into society. But
my mum did make me a beautiful frock, and I seem to recall that was the most
important bit for me. Still is.” Tallulah Mockingbird continues to love
dressing up, as her photo in Elsa Quarsell”s book </span><i>The</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><i>Domestic Burlesque</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> reveals. Not that she could have attended her
debutante ball in the risqué outfits she masterminds for her burlesque
routines. Fortunately there is a ball coming up next week at which Ms
Mockingbird can wear exactly what she likes.</span></div>
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When I set out to research real-life bad debutantes, I never
thought I’d find one among my own cabaret and burlesque circle. I bet a
burlesque dancer is just about the worst sort of bad girl those stuffy society
mothers of the ‘good old days’ could have imagined. But to me it’s the best
sort of bad girl. Exactly the sort of bad girl that Wednesday’s Bad Debutante
Ball is intended for. I can’t wait to see what Tallulah wears to it.</div>
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<b>The Night of the Blue Stockings: Bad Debutante Ball.
Wednesday, 23 November, 20:30. Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 42-46 Pollard
Row, London E2 6NB. £9 (£7 advance).</b></div>
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Special thanks to novelist Josa Young, author of <i>One
Apple Tasted</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
(http://www.oneappletasted.co.uk) for sharing two chapters of her new,
currently unpublished novel charting the debutante experience over several
generations.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-76091708759247108562013-07-23T00:44:00.001+01:002013-08-23T12:26:00.684+01:00Tricity Vogue's Ukulele Cabaret - Edinburgh Fringe 2013<b>TRICITY VOGUE'S UKULELE CABARET </b>returns to the Edinburgh Fringe for its fourth year in 2013 - 9-10pm nightly in the Ballroom of Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, from 1st to 18th August (except 12 August). A star-studded line-up of special guests battle to win the coveted Uke of Edinburgh Award. <br />
<br />
<b>LINE UP DETAILS BELOW:</b>
<br />
<br />
<i>Thursday 1 August</i><br />
<b>Desmond O'Connor, Joby Mageean, Shit Theatre</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>DESMOND O'CONNOR</b><br />
<br />
<i>Friday 2 August</i><br />
<b>Vicky Arlidge, Bob and Jim, Oliver Meech</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>VICKY ARLIDGE</b><br />
<br />
<i>Saturday 3 August</i><br />
<b>Owen Niblock, Liberty Hodes, Jo Stephenson</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner:<b> JO STEPHENSON</b><br />
<br />
<i>Sunday 4 August</i><br />
<b>Johnny Setlist, Tom Harlow, St Andrews Review</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>JOHNNY SETLIST</b><br />
<br />
<i>Monday 5 August</i><br />
<b>Melissa and Tnee, Eleanor Morton, MJ Hibbett</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>MELISSA AND TNEE</b><br />
<br />
<i>Tuesday 6 August</i><br />
<b>Katrina Smith, Tomas Ford, Luc Valvona</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>KATRINA SMITH</b><br />
<br />
<i>Wednesday 7 August</i><br />
<b>Emily Scott, Doug Segal, Myra Dubois </b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>EMILY SCOTT</b><br />
<br />
<i>Thursday 8 August</i><br />
<b>Helen Arney, Calum MacAskill, Paul Gannon</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>HELEN ARNEY</b><br />
<br />
<i>Friday 9 August</i><br />
<b>Vanessa Knight, Stan Skinny, Colin McLeod</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>STAN SKINNY</b><br />
<br />
<i>Saturday 10 August</i><br />
<b>Laurence Owen, Ellis and Rose, Mat Ricardo</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>MAT RICARDO</b><br />
<br />
<i>Sunday 11 August</i><br />
<b>Alistair Greaves, Stuart Bowden, Lady Carol</b>
<b> </b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>LADY CAROL</b><br />
<br />
<i>Tuesday 13 August</i><br />
<b>The Frukes, David Pickering, Steve Bennett</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>THE FRUKES</b><br />
<br />
<i>Wednesday 14 August</i><br />
<b>Emily SneE, Sharnema Nougar, Uke Hoot - Edinburgh's ukulele jam and singalong </b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>SHARNEMA NOUGAR</b><br />
<br />
<i>Thursday 15 August</i><br />
<b>Catharine Rogers, Dusty Limits, Champagne Charlie</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner:<b> CATHARINE ROGERS</b><br />
<br />
<i>Friday 16 August</i><br />
<b>Ria Lina, Lord Hicks, </b><b>Sarah-Louise Young</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>RIA LINA</b><br />
<br />
<i>Saturday 17 August</i><br />
<b><b>The Great Aziz</b>, Ukegnome, Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: <b>WELLINGTON INTERNATIONAL UKULELE ORCHESTRA</b><br />
<br />
<i>Sunday 18 August</i><br />
<b>Ria Lina, Johnny Setlist, Helen Arney, Eleanor Morton, Steve Bennett</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Champion Of Champions: <b>STEVE BENNETT</b><br />
<br />
TRICITY VOGUE'S UKULELE CABARET<br />
Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, Ballroom, 38 West Nicolson Street Edinburgh EH8 9DD<br />
AUG 1-18 (not 12), 2012 at 9-10pm<br />
ENTRANCE FREE<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/cabaret/tricity-vogue-s-ukulele-cabaret-free">Here's the show on the Fringe website.</a>
<br />
<br />
Tricity Vogue also has a solo show:<br />
CALAMITOUS LIAISONS<br />
Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, Lounge, 38 West Nicolson Street Edinburgh EH8 9DD<br />
AUG 1-18 (not 12), 2013 at 5-6pm<br />
ENTRANCE FREE<br />
<a href="https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/cabaret/tricity-vogue-calamitous-liaisons-free" target="_blank">More details on the Fringe website. </a><br />
<br />
And Tricity also hosts a FREE UKULELE WORKSHOP on Saturday 3 and Saturday 10 August between 12pm and 2pm at The Third Man and Rae Macintosh Music shop. <a href="https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/music/ukulele-lunch-date-with-tricity-vogue-free">More details on the Fringe website</a>.<br />
<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-75068963826491000742013-05-03T14:23:00.000+01:002013-05-03T16:28:39.847+01:00Casting Call for Heels Of Glory, A Drag Action Musical<br /><b>Auditions
<br /><br />
'Heels Of Glory': A Drag Action Musical
by Tricity Vogue & Richard Link </b>
<br /><br />
Heels of Glory is an original musical with an action movie plot, a ’60s comic book aesthetic, and the kind of tunes that would have graced a vintage James Bond movie — if they’d ever made one with song-and-dance numbers and a drag queen spy.
<br /><br />
<b>The Artistic Team:</b>
<br /><br />
The show is written by composer <a href="http://richardlink.com/">Richard Link</a> (Two Blondes With A Passion, Watch Me Shine, A Little Princess) and cabaret performer <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/">Tricity Vogue</a> AKA award-winning screenwriter <a href="http://heathertyrrellwriter.wordpress.com/ ">Heather Tyrrell</a> (Byker Grove, My Family, Totally Frank).
<br /><br />
Direction & Choreography will be by <a href="http://russelllucas.com/">Russell Lucas </a>(Julie Madly Deeply, Goldsmiths New Musical Festival)
<br /><br />
Heels Of Glory will be staged at The Albany Theatre, Deptford on Friday 5 July 2013. We have secured research and development space at the theatre for six days prior to the scratch performance which is when we will explore, direct and choreograph the show. An intense few days - not for the faint-hearted!
<br /><br />
This is the third version of the musical, following a rehearsed reading in April 2012 and a sold out work-in-progress performance at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in January 2013. Please note that at this stage everyone will be working for free but a professional approach to the work is paramount. This will be an incredible opportunity for networking though, building experience and being part of an exciting fast paced week, plus the chance to add to the genesis of an innovative piece of musical theatre.
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<b>Cast requirements:</b>
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We are looking for three “triple threat” drag queens, a “triple threat” diva plus two “triple threat” drag kings.
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You do not have to have been a drag queen/king at any point. We are seeking confident performers who will be versatile enough to play anything we throw at them. <br /><br />
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Character names and minimum requirements:</b>
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- Splendorella. International drag queen superstar (and spy). High baritone singer with star quality. A first class bitch.<br />
- Allura. Creative Director of Supreme Cosmetics, every drag queen’s go-to brand (and evil villainess plotting the annihilation of all drag queens). Singer with strong belt and a heart of pure evil.<br />
- Honey. A drag queen wannabe and Splendorella super-fan. A baritone singer, and a baby bitch with upstart attitude. <br />
- Jay. Honey’s best friend. A vintage James Bond geek and reluctant drag queen. A tenor singer and an innocent with hidden talents. <br />
- Albertina. Allura’s henchman, hit man, barman, backing dancer, bodyguard, and thwarted showgirl. <br />
- Bertilda. Allura’s henchman, hit man, barman, backing dancer, bodyguard, and thwarted showgirl. <br />
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<b>Auditions</b>
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Auditions will be held on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 May, at a pre-allocated time between 10am and 5.30pm. Venue TBC. These will be workshop style auditions.
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When you have sent through your details we will contact you to let you know if you have got through to a workshop audition.
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Call backs will be held on Sunday 12 May - time TBC.
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Please note that your audition will last 90 minutes and you will be in groups of eight. Although you will perform solo, sometimes other actors will be in the room. We are looking to create a company of artists that are open and supportive and wish to encourage a safe, risk-free environment from the outset. The artistic team will also be leading exercises, games and giving you specific direction.<br /><br />
<b>
Material
</b><br /><br />
We ask that actresses bring a song from the 60's and actors bring a song for a female voice from the 60s.
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Please also bring a prepared piece of text that you may need to use in the workshop. This can be from theatre, films, poems, books - anything that you love!
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<b>Rehearsal dates:</b>
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Thu 27 June, Fri 28 June, Mon 1 July, Tue 2 July, Wed 3 July.
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Time: 10am to 6pm
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<b>Performance is 5th July</b><br /><br />
The whole company will be needed from 10am to 9pm.<br /><br />
All rehearsals and the performance will take place at <a href="http://www.thealbany.org.uk/">The Albany Theatre</a>, Deptford (Deptford or New Cross station, zone 2)
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If this sounds like you then we would love to hear from you. Please send a Headshot of yourself a CV or Spotlight number and a one-page covering letter telling us all about you to <b>auditions@heelsofglory.com</b><br /><br />
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Application deadline is Monday 6 May by 12 noon.</b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzMaTP77Ux6i3DxpTmkTDWskqhP5rzAde3VpdnrvC08DfvGU_eUDx7nuYOtHFl7TCYNAwg0RtRTAiZ19hairvL1KginZGoZv4AqfIlGuxBDRzCYDJdq-gp5_HAJvVBEnm-yQ/s1600/heelsofgloryposter02-cropped-small.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzMaTP77Ux6i3DxpTmkTDWskqhP5rzAde3VpdnrvC08DfvGU_eUDx7nuYOtHFl7TCYNAwg0RtRTAiZ19hairvL1KginZGoZv4AqfIlGuxBDRzCYDJdq-gp5_HAJvVBEnm-yQ/s320/heelsofgloryposter02-cropped-small.jpg" /></a>
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Poster art by <a href="http://stevemay.biz/">Steve May</a>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-63848107619717979432012-12-07T00:20:00.000+00:002012-12-07T00:20:47.171+00:00<b>How The Blue Lady Became - A Fairy Tale
</b><br />
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Once upon a time a princess lived in a castle in a cold mountain land. The castle was very warm inside, but the princess longed to explore the beautiful mountains, even though everyone in the castle told her she would freeze to death if she went outside, as her mother the queen had done when she left the castle with a mysterious traveller one night so many years before. Yet every day, the princess would sit in the window of her tower and look at the long empty road that led away through the mountains into the lands beyond, and sing a song of longing.
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One day as the princess was gazing out at the long road through the mountains, and singing her song of longing, she saw a traveller walking towards the castle. He sat under her window and listened to her song. Then, when she stopped singing, he went away. The princess was sad. The next day when she came to her window and began to sing her song of longing again, the traveller returned, and sat listening to her song. On the third day the same thing happened. But on the fourth day when the princess sang nobody came. Sad, she went down to the banqueting hall for the feast, only to find the traveller warming his hands by the hearth. Her father the king told her that he had found the traveller outside the castle walls while out hunting, and offered him a meal and a warm bed for the night.
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The princess sat beside the traveller all night, listening to his tales of the lands over the mountains. The traveller was on his way to a magical island in a deep blue ocean, where it was always warm and where beautiful flowers grew, and every tree was heavy with fruit. The princess had never seen flowers or trees, or the ocean, and she longed to go with him. “Why don’t you?” asked the traveller. But the princess told him sadly that if she ever went outside the castle, she would freeze to death. “Oh no you won’t,” said the traveller, and told her he had a gift for her that would stop her from freezing. He showed her a beautiful fur coat. The princess tried it on and felt warm from head to toe. “What can I give you in exchange?” she asked the traveller. “Sing me a song,” he said. So she did. And that night, when everyone in the castle was fast asleep, she put on her new fur coat, and followed the traveller out of the castle and onto the long empty road. But in her fur coat she didn’t freeze. She didn’t feel the cold at all.
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The princess and the traveller walked for many days and many nights, all the way through the mountains to the other side. Every day the princess saw marvellous things she never new existed, and every night she sang to the traveller as he built them a fire and cooked the food he had foraged and hunted along the road. Eventually they reached a deep dark forest and the princess was frightened, but the traveller held her hand and promised to keep her safe. As they walked through the forest they heard the crackle of branches as something came towards them. The traveller unsheathed his knife, but it was only an old lady in a long travelling cloak and hood. “I am all alone and the forest is a dangerous place,” she said. “Please may I travel with you?” But the traveller told the old lady to keep away and leave them alone. The princess was sad, but the traveller said he could only look after one other person, and the old lady would slow them down. He wanted to get to the magical island as quickly as he could.
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As they travelled on, the forest got warmer and warmer, and became a jungle, and the princess became very hot in her fur coat. But the traveller wouldn’t let her leave it behind, because it was too precious, and one day she would want to return to her mountain homeland, and then she would need the coat again. So the princess struggled on, carrying the coat under her arm, but it became a heavier and heavier burden. One night as the traveller slept, the princess was woken by the sound of weeping. She followed the sound and found the old lady sitting crying in a small clearing nearby. The princess thought the old lady was crying because she had no food, so brought her some of the stew from their own stewpot. But the old lady said the real reason she was crying was because she was lonely. The princess felt ashamed that the traveller had turned the old lady away, and told her to travel with them to the magic warm island. But the old lady said she did not want to go to the magic warm island, she was tired of the heat. She wanted to go back to the beautiful icy mountains where she came from, but she was so old and so frail that she would freeze to death on the road before she ever reached the castle. So the princess gave the old lady her fur coat. The old lady thanked her for her kindness, with tears in her eyes. The princess slept soundly that night. The next morning she told the traveller nothing of what had happened the night before.
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The next day the traveller and the princess reached the edge of the jungle and walked out onto a beach of golden sand. In front of them was a deep blue ocean, and rising out of the ocean was the magic island. They could just see tiny people waving to them on the shore. Eagerly the traveller threw off his clothes and waded into the water, ready to swim across. He held out his hand to the princess. But the princess would not follow him into the water. She had never seen water before and she was afraid. She could not swim. The traveller was impatient to reach the magic island, but he offered to teach the princess how to swim so she could come with him. The princess was afraid, but she followed the traveller into the water, because she had followed him all the way from her frozen homeland and he had kept her safe until then. The traveller held the princess up in the water and showed her how to move her arms and legs, but as soon as she let go she would sink under the water, again and again, and the traveller would have to pull her back to the surface, choking and gasping. All day he tried to teach her, until the princess was so tired and afraid of the water that she could bear no more. So the traveller helped her back to the shore, where she sat shivering on the beach, despite the heat. “Put on your fur coat and warm yourself,” said the traveller. But the princess told him she no longer had the fur coat, because she had given it to the old lady. Then the traveller was very angry. This is why he had sent the old lady away, because she was a trickster and a thief. The princess had concealed from the traveller that the old lady was following them, and the old lady had taken the most precious possession that the foolish, trusting princess owned. If the princess did not trust the traveller to look after her, and did not follow his lead, then he would not help her to reach the magic island. With that, the traveller dived into the sea, swimming to the magic island and leaving the princess behind.
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The princess sat on the beach alone, watching the traveller swim away from her, while the tears ran down her cheeks. She sang again the song of longing she had sung before from the window of her castle room as she looked out over the long empty road into the mountains. Then the old lady came to her again, and wrapped the fur coat around the princess’s shoulders to stop her shivering. “Do you really want to reach the magic island?” asked the old lady. “More than anything in the world,” replied the princess. “Then,” said the old lady, “because you have given me a gift, I will give you a gift.” And the old lady gave the princess a jar of blue paste. “This paste is made from the shells of the creatures that live on the ocean floor,” she said. “I have been collecting them for many years, and for many years I have been crushing the shells to paste with my pestle and mortar, but now I have enough, I no longer want to reach the magic island.” “But what does the paste do?” asked the princess. “Cover your whole body with the paste,” said the old lady, “every inch of it. And the blue will protect you, so that you can walk right under the waves and into the water, without drowning.” “Oh thank you!” said the princess, reaching for the paste. But before the old lady would give the paste to the princess she had one more warning. “Once you have covered yourself with this paste, it will never wash off again. You will always be blue.” “What do I care what colour I am,” said the princess, “as long as I can get to the place I long to be more than anywhere else in the world?” So the old lady gave the princess the blue paste, and the princess gave the old lady back her fur coat once more, because now she was filled with hope again she had stopped shivering, and the two women said goodbye.
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The princess covered herself in the blue paste from head to toe, and then she walked into the water. Sure enough, as soon as the waves closed over her head, the princess discovered she could still breathe, and she could see everything under the water too. The princess walked along the seabed towards the magic island, and along the way she travelled through the most beautiful world she had ever seen, full of sea anemones and brightly coloured fish. When she reached the island she walked out of the ocean onto the beach, and there, sitting on the shore, was the traveller. He was staring across the ocean to the beach where he had left her, and there were tears pouring down his cheeks. The princess walked over to the traveller. “It’s all right, I’m here,” she said. But when the traveller saw her he leapt away from her in horror. “It’s me,” she said, “the princess!” But the traveller said, “Get away from me, monster!” He did not recognise the princess. The princess thought of a way to show the traveller it was her, so she began to sing. But the traveller put his fingers in his ears. “Stop that ugly sound!” he shouted. “And get away from me!”
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Heartbroken, the blue princess walked away from the traveller, through the flowers and the fruit trees of the magic island. But she didn’t see them, because her eyes were full of tears. The blue princess climbed to the top of a rock by the water and she sang her song of longing, as the tears fell down her face. But although the tears trickled down her skin, they didn’t wash off the blue, because the blue was there forever. The blue princess didn’t even try to rub the blue away, because she knew the old lady had been telling the truth. She would always be blue now. It was only when the sun had set and the princess climbed down from her rock that she discovered a crowd of island people gathered at the foot of the rock, all on their knees before her, and offering up trays laden with fruit and garlands of flowers. As she walked among them they lifted her up on their shoulders and hailed her as their blue goddess, who came to them from the ocean and healed their pain with her song.
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The island people carried the princess to a beautiful garden palace full of flowers and fountains, music and joy, where everyone danced and laughed and feasted, and where she lived happily among them for many years. But sometimes the princess would dream about the frozen mountain land of her childhood, and as the years went by she began to long to return there. So sometimes the blue goddess would walk alone into the waves and gather tiny blue sea creatures from the ocean floor, then she would carry them back to her palace and crush the shells into a paste, until, after many years, she had a whole jar full of blue paste. Then she said goodbye to her people and walked into the waves, never to return.
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When she reached the other shore, the blue princess concealed the colour of her skin beneath a cloak and hood, and walked into the forest. After a few days travel she met a man and a young woman travelling together. The man did not trust her and sent her away, but the woman was kind to her and offered her food, so the blue princess followed them, keeping out of sight. One night the blue princess found the woman crying by herself in a clearing. She asked her what was wrong and the young woman said that she wanted to reach the magic island, but she couldn’t swim. The blue princess offered the woman her jar of blue paste, and the young woman accepted it gratefully. In exchange she offered the blue princess her fur coat, so the blue princess could travel to the frozen mountains. Before the blue princess left the young woman she warned her that once she had covered herself in the blue paste, although she would be able to walk under water without drowning, she would be blue forever, and her companion might reject her. But the young woman smiled. “When you are a traveller,” she said, “everywhere you go and everyone you meet is strange and foreign. So you must accept them all. Or you will always be alone.”
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So the blue princess put on the young woman’s fur coat and walked towards her frozen mountain home, knowing that her island people would soon meet their new blue goddess from the waves, and that waiting for her in a warm mountain castle far away was the old lady who had helped her so many years before, and who was also the blue queen, her mother.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-89739826048469786572012-07-29T15:12:00.000+01:002013-05-23T22:33:08.013+01:00Tricity Vogue's Ukulele Cabaret - Edinburgh Fringe 2012<b>TRICITY VOGUE'S UKULELE CABARET </b>returned to the Edinburgh Fringe for its third year in 2012 - 9.30-10.30pm nightly in the Ballroom of Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, from 2nd to 26th August. A star-studded line-up of special guests battled to win the coveted Uke of Edinburgh Award. Each winner chose a topic for Tricity to write a song about for the next show. <br /><br /><a href="https://soundcloud.com/tricity-vogue/sets/edinburgh-fringe-2012"><b>You can listen to Tricity's songs on Soundcloud here.</b></a><a href="https://soundcloud.com/tricity-vogue/sets/edinburgh-fringe-2012"></a><br /><br />
<b>LINE UP DETAILS BELOW:</b>
<br /><br />
<i>Thursday 2 August</i><br />
<b>Desmond O'Connor, Ria Lina, Dusty Limits</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Lins McRobie of Edinburgh Uke Hoot (audience contestant)<br />
Tricity's song topic: Bowler Hat<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Friday 3 August</i><br />
<b>Dusty Limits, Audacity Chutzpah, Miranda Kane</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Audacity Chutzpah<br />
Tricity's song topic: Goats<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Saturday 4 August</i><br />
<b>Ben Jones, DeAnne Smith, Emily Scott, The Stillhouse Orchestra</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winners: Ben Jones and DeAnne Smith<br />
Tricity's song topic: Aubergine<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Sunday 5 August</i><br />
<b>Eleanor Morton, Katrina Smith. Bob and Jim, Albert Spink</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Eleanor Morton<br />
Tricity's song topic: Mothballs<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Monday 6 August</i><br />
<b>Ria Lina, Stav Meishar, Myra Dubois, Eleanor Morton</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Ria Lina<br />
Tricity's song topic: Awards<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Tuesday 7 August</i><br />
<b>Sarah-Louise Young, Billy Wagg (Susan Harrison), Howard Read, Molly Beth White</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winners: Billy Wagg and Sarah-Louise Young<br />
Tricity's song topic: A happy song about the death of a pet<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Wednesday 8 August</i><br />
<b>Joby Mageean, Audacity Chutzpah, Josh Richards, Amelia Robinson</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winners: Joby Mageean and Audacity Chutzpah<br />
Tricity's song topic: Nintendo Wii (with actions)<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Thursday 9 August</i><br />
<b>Ria Lina, Jane Bom-Bane, Robert Inston, Jax Braithwaite</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Jax Braithwaite<br />
Tricity's song topic: Alliteration...and Fanny<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Friday 10 August</i><br />
<b>Helen Arney, Mark Wallington, Molly and Me, Gareth and Misha</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Molly and Me<br />
Tricity's song topic: Sunglasses<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Saturday 11 August</i><br />
<b>Lady Carol, Mark Wallington, Ashley Frieze, Sophie Steel</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Lady Carol<br />
Tricity's song topic: Mental Block<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Sunday 12 August</i><br />
<b>Jo Stephenson, Eleanor Morton, Mat Ricardo, Uke Gnome</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Eleanor Morton<br />
Tricity's song topic: Lady Pirates<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Monday 13 August</i><br />
<b>Tim Clare, Jess Guille, Uke Gnome, Formby (Ewan Wardrop)</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Formby<br />
Tricity's song topic: Bells<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Tuesday 14 August</i><br />
<b>She Makes War, Roland Dootsan, Gareth Ellis, Leela Bunce</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Leela Bunce<br />
Tricity's song topic: Harry Potter<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Wednesday 15 August</i><br />
<b>Jonny Woo, Josephine Shaker, Callum Scott, Dan Woods, Mr Mistress</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Mr Mistress<br />
Tricity's song topic: My Drag Queen Wet Dream<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Thursday 16 August</i><br />
<b>Ria Lina, Sh!t theatre, Peter Buckle, Desmond O'Connor</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Sh!t theatre<br />
Tricity's song topic: Funemployment<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Friday 17 August</i><br />
<b>Helen Arney, Ben Jones, Owen Niblock, Amie Amis</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Amie Amis<br />
Tricity's song topic: Pineapple<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Saturday 18 August</i><br />
<b>Holly Penfield, Dan Woods, DeAnne Smith, Bob Slayer</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Dan Woods<br />
Tricity's song topic: 29 Espressos<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Sunday 19 August</i><br />
<b>The Curious Couple From Coney, Tom Harlow, Rosy Rebel, Mat Ricardo</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Tom Harlow<br />
Tricity's song topic: Glitter<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Monday 20 August</i><br />
<b>DeAnne Smith, Dave Bear, Joe Black, Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: DeAnne Smith<br />
Tricity's song topic: Gentlemen<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Tuesday 21 August</i><br />
<b>Jonny Woo, Bethany Singh, John Lane, David (Audience Member)</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Bethany Singh<br />
Tricity's song topic: Paper Cranes<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Wednesday 22 August</i><br />
<b>Johnny Suave (Chris Young), Dave Nelder, Josephine Shaker, Jamie Bowen</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Josephine Shaker<br />
Tricity's song topic: Penguins Drinking Beer<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Thursday 23 August</i><br />
<b>Ria Lina, Cera Impala, Michael Munnik, Jolly Boat, Tom McDermott</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Ria Lina<br />
Tricity's song topic: Alternative Universes<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Friday 24 August</i><br />
<b>Helen Arney, Molly & Me, Miranda Kane, Shit Theatre, Vanessa Hammick</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Helen Arney<br />
Tricity's song topic: Beaker from the Muppets<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Saturday 25 August</i><br />
<b>Lisa Kenny, Johnny Setlist, Ben Jones, Mervyn Stutter</b><br />
Uke Of Edinburgh Award Winner: Mervyn Stutter<br />
Tricity's song topic: Varifocals<br />
<br /><br />
<i>Sunday 26 August</i><br />
<b>Gareth Ellis, Tricity Vogue, Ria Lina, Amie Amis, Josephine Shaker, Shit Theatre, Johnny Setlist, Ben Jones, Lins McRobie, David (Audience Member)</b><br /><br />
TRICITY VOGUE'S UKULELE CABARET<br />
Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, Ballroom, 38 West Nicolson Street Edinburgh EH8 9DD<br />
AUG 2-26, 2012 at 9.30-10.30pm<br />
ENTRANCE FREE<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/cabaret/tricity-vogue-s-ukulele-cabaret-free">Here's the show on the Fringe website.</a>
<br /><br />
Tricity also hosted a FREE PAINT AND PLAY UKULELE WORKSHOP every Saturday in August between 1pm and 3pm at Rae Macintosh Music shop. <a href="http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/music/free-paint-and-play-ukulele-workshop-with-tricity-vogue">More details on the Fringe website</a>.<br /><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3goHPw_-8m13v5gX_KlC9VJQL0Y9MkF2lhtp1eN1T2UeH2QDd-wiqTI_0nFWFYSo6mIHSvzAY-_U5tMD-3r5YFJZDJEpP7yVSpFt2Ov6KaG9GLW5haPc6qyGAjxMf-lPJrQ/s1600/UkuleleCabaretPoster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3goHPw_-8m13v5gX_KlC9VJQL0Y9MkF2lhtp1eN1T2UeH2QDd-wiqTI_0nFWFYSo6mIHSvzAY-_U5tMD-3r5YFJZDJEpP7yVSpFt2Ov6KaG9GLW5haPc6qyGAjxMf-lPJrQ/s320/UkuleleCabaretPoster.jpg" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-70070691917656116572012-02-14T12:14:00.003+00:002012-02-14T12:50:12.205+00:00Extracts from "An Incomplete Manifesto For Growth" by Bruce MauIn 2004, while I was staying in Edinburgh, my friend Paul showed me an A4 photocopy of some advice for designers which I liked so much I copied extracts from it into my notebook.<br /><br />I thought of it again just yesterday, while I was toiling over a cover version of a Tom Waits song, and decided to dig it out and have another look at it.<br /><br />You might find some or all of these ideas interesting too:<br /><br /><br /><br />1) ALLOW THINGS TO CHANGE YOU<br />Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it.<br /><br />2) FORGET ABOUT GOOD<br /><br />3) PROCESS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUTCOME<br /><br />4) LOVE YOUR EXPERIMENTS (AS YOU WOULD AN UGLY CHILD)<br />Joy is the engine of growth. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.<br /><br />5) GO DEEP<br />The deeper you go, the more likely you are to discover something of value.<br /><br />6) CAPTURE ACCIDENTS<br />The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question.<br /><br />7) STUDY<br />Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.<br /><br />8) DRIFT<br />Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgement. Postpone criticism.<br /><br />9) BEGIN ANYWHERE<br />John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.<br /><br />10) EVERYONE IS A LEADER<br />Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.<br /><br />11) HARVEST IDEAS. EDIT APPLICATIONS<br />Ideas need a dynamic, fluid and generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigour. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.<br /><br />120 KEEP MOVING<br />The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.<br /><br />13) SLOW DOWN<br />Desynchronize from standard timeframes and surprising opportunities may present themselves.<br /><br />14) DON'T BE COOL<br />Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.<br /><br />15) ASK STUPID QUESTIONS<br />Growth is fuelled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.<br /><br />16) COLLABORATE<br />The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.<br /><br />17) _______________<br />Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven't had yet, and for the ideas of others.<br /><br />18) STAY UP LATE<br />Strange things happen when you've gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.<br /><br />19) WORK THE METAPHOR<br />Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.<br /><br />20) BE CAREFUL TO TAKE RISKS<br />Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.<br /><br />4) REPEAT YOURSELF<br />If you like it do it again. If you don't like it, do it again.<br /><br />22) MAKE YOUR OWN TOOLS<br />Tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.<br /><br />23) STAND ON SOMEONE'S SHOULDERS<br />You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.<br /><br />24) AVOID SOFTWARE<br />Everyone has it.<br /><br />25) DON'T CLEAN YOUR DESK<br />You might find something in the morning that you can't see tonight.<br /><br />26) DON'T ENTER AWARD COMPETITIONS<br />Just don't. It's not good for you.<br /><br />27) READ ONLY LEFT-HAND PAGES<br />Decrease the amount of information and leave room for your "noodle".<br /><br />28) MAKE NEW WORDS<br />New conditions demand new ways of thinking, which demands new words, which generates new conditions.<br /><br />29) THINK WITH YOUR MIND<br />Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.<br /><br />30) ORGANISATION = LIBERTY<br />The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a "charming artifact of the past".<br /><br />31) DON'T BORROW MONEY<br />By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control.<br /><br />32) LISTEN CAREFULLY<br />Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires or ambitions, we fold their world into our own. Neither party will ever be the same.<br /><br />33) TAKE FIELD TRIPS<br />The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV, or the internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic simulated environment.<br /><br />34) MAKE MISTAKES FASTER<br /><br />35) IMITATE<br />Don't be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable.<br /><br />36) SCAT<br />When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else... but not words.<br /><br />37) BREAK IT, STRETCH IT, BEND IT, CRUSH IT, CRACK IT, FOLD IT<br /><br />38) EXPLORE THE OTHER EDGE<br />Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the pack. We can't find the leading edge because it's trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.<br /><br />39) COFFEE BREAKS, CAB RIDES, GREEN ROOMS<br />Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces - what Dr Seuss calls "the waiting place".<br /><br />40) AVOID FIELDS. JUMP FENCES<br />Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. It's our job to jump the fence.<br /><br />41) LAUGH<br />Use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing oruselves.<br /><br />42) REMEMBER<br />Without memory, innovation is merely novelty.<br /><br />43) POWER TO THE PEOPLE<br />Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free angents if we're not free.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Bruce Mau runs a Toronto and New York based design studio. The full manifesto is on his website here:<br /><a href="http://www.brucemaudesign.com/4817/112450/work/incomplete-manifesto-for-growth">http://www.brucemaudesign.com/4817/112450/work/incomplete-manifesto-for-growth</a><br /><br />But I thought it was more fun to copy out the bits I'd written down in my own notebook eight years ago. It looks like I jotted down most of it in the end, but then, according to point number 35, copying might be a good thing to do anyway.<br /><br />TV<br />xxAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-895821587268739242011-03-12T10:09:00.010+00:002011-03-12T10:28:43.092+00:00Tretchikoff and the Real Blue Lady<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdcfNaHTIv3K5WepVKIdBys1j9MdPuavgLNb0dIKMtloQ0G4JNQ2k1lUDLgJFG-kFHWhO2_DKna0kY-RHwzHhzfLCTbhGrTFdoxMYIufD2bOxpMnyZsNgE0T5FNEcD01LBaA/s1600/VladimirTretchikoffChineseG.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdcfNaHTIv3K5WepVKIdBys1j9MdPuavgLNb0dIKMtloQ0G4JNQ2k1lUDLgJFG-kFHWhO2_DKna0kY-RHwzHhzfLCTbhGrTFdoxMYIufD2bOxpMnyZsNgE0T5FNEcD01LBaA/s320/VladimirTretchikoffChineseG.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583134027893934546" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Cabaret singer Tricity Vogue finds the artist who inspired her hit Edinburgh show, and the woman who was his muse</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">This article was first published in the Erotic Review: The Art Issue in February 2011 <a href="http://www.eroticreviewmagazine.com/">http://www.eroticreviewmagazine.com/</a></span><br /><br />On my bedroom wall is a 1960s framed print of a woman with a blue-green face, a golden Chinese gown, jet-black hair and startling red lips. I bought it on the Essex Road in North London from a shop called Past Caring. It cost me £70. My mum remembers when the same print sold in Boots the Chemist in Derby for 11 shillings and sixpence. She also remembers that it was the picture everyone wanted on their walls. The Chinese Girl was once better-selling than the Mona Lisa. Vladimir Tretchikoff, the painter, was compared to Picasso and Van Gogh: primarily by himself. The ubiquity of the image for over two decades was also primarily down to the artist himself, thanks to a combination of tireless self-promotion and bullet-proof self-belief. But then, when you’ve survived a revolution, a shipwreck and a Japanese prison-of-war camp, artistic world domination wouldn’t seem beyond you either.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTkAzHSUV8sjSXCtQ2r9ulJTsL9fSWN6b69Zb2gkP4_bXWLOJCPltGvN17pr2ClSP70YBmRvJl17bBkrlLsQP8eGa380bWbCQrdmNS1VD6pcGVLJe5nDwWojaNBwHRu9gVA/s1600/blue+lady+small.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTkAzHSUV8sjSXCtQ2r9ulJTsL9fSWN6b69Zb2gkP4_bXWLOJCPltGvN17pr2ClSP70YBmRvJl17bBkrlLsQP8eGa380bWbCQrdmNS1VD6pcGVLJe5nDwWojaNBwHRu9gVA/s320/blue+lady+small.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583135053626656546" /></a><br /><br />I’ve spent two years painting my face blue in homage to Tretchikoff’s iconic image for my cabaret show The Blue Lady Sings. I had a sneaking suspicion that the man behind this stylised, high-impact portrait might be larger-than-life too, and I was right. Tretchi, as he was affectionately known, has all the ingredients for a quintessential artist profile. Deprivation and adversity: check. Volatile, quixotic temperament: check. Exotic muse and mistress: check. Plus vivid extras, including some uncannily accurate predictions at a séance, and a couple of brushes with death in a pink Cadillac. Tretchi lived his life in brighter colours than everyone else.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqUjLhrtudTjUh4k3PTWncpF1IebOw1pzse2hjMGvjLHHCwvlYHPvy6SKSJDknCdfrEztQlmo4-mbyRuf2bdpYU0BuRnz9BUaz7SRel3LHf-Dbb3Sdpj7VPCdDIjQoiKUrMg/s1600/tretchy_biography_280x2000q70.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 291px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqUjLhrtudTjUh4k3PTWncpF1IebOw1pzse2hjMGvjLHHCwvlYHPvy6SKSJDknCdfrEztQlmo4-mbyRuf2bdpYU0BuRnz9BUaz7SRel3LHf-Dbb3Sdpj7VPCdDIjQoiKUrMg/s320/tretchy_biography_280x2000q70.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583135775580553282" /></a><br /><br />It was a long journey to the self-designed mansion in Cape Town where Tretchikoff died in 2006, and one that took in all five continents. It started in Kazakhstan, where he was born in 1913 to landed gentry, before the Russian revolution drove the family to China. There the now-penniless boy earned his keep as apprentice scene painter at the Harbon Opera House until he was sixteen, when the Chinese Eastern Railway commissioned him to paint portraits of Lenin and Sun Yat San for their headquarters, for the princely sum of 500 Roubles. Tretchi used the money to move to Shanghai. In the “Paris of the East” (as near to studying art in Paris as he ever got) young Vladimir bagged both a plum job, as cartoonist for the Shanghai Times, and a wife – fellow Russian émigré Natalie Telpregoff. The couple moved to Singapore in 1936, where Tretchi drew cartoons for the British Ministry of Information’s anti-Japanese propaganda. In 1938 he represented Malaya in the New York World’s Fair, and his daughter Mimi was born. Then the Japanese invaded Singapore and things took on a darker hue.<br /><br />Natalie and Mimi made it out of Singapore, but Tretchikoff’s later boat was torpedoed while he was stoking the furnace. As the ship sank, he bagged the last place in the lifeboat when a woman thrust her baby into his arms. The forty two refugees rowed for their lives for Sumatra, only to discover the Japanese had beaten them to it. So Tretchi and a bunch of other survivors turned the boat around and rowed another nineteen days to Java, risking drowning, scurvy and starvation en route. Legend has it that Tretchi used drawings to barter with island tribesmen for the coconuts that kept them alive. Their safe arrival in Java palled somewhat when the terrified locals handed them straight over to the Japanese invaders, who’d got there first, again. <br /><br />The Japanese hauled the whole boatload off to prisoner-of-war camp, but the five-foot-three artist was, like many small men throughout history, pugnacious by nature. Tretchi protested that he was a Russian citizen and the invaders had no right to hold him. They promptly threw him in solitary confinement, where he was stuck for three months. Then the prison camp general offered him conditional freedom – if he turned set-painter for a Japanese gala show. Tretchi basically painted his way out of jail. <br /><br />Tretchi was living as a free man in Jakarta, and not only free, but also footloose, since his wife and child were somewhere on the other side of the world, if they were alive at all. Enter the beautiful Leonora Moltema, AKA Lenka, half Dutch, half Malaysian, and all woman. The Tretchikoff website describes Lenka as “a woman of culture and intelligence… an artist herself, and mistress of five languages”. The choice of word is apt, since Lenka was indeed Tretchi’s mistress as well as his muse and model. An elderly Tretchikoff told documentary filmmaker Yvonne du Toit in the 1990s that she was the love of his life. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgic31HlN1A8llD1hzKQ6YqNrDW-Frv6Ejns890sntidhRQh9TWsWgyh36fqeiD3KylincikEQTXiy4oSR5GfWRYv3upDNTRFbkAa3bazMbdBv6PLFusb2AXXh87dx7kWgKaQ/s1600/lenka.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 259px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgic31HlN1A8llD1hzKQ6YqNrDW-Frv6Ejns890sntidhRQh9TWsWgyh36fqeiD3KylincikEQTXiy4oSR5GfWRYv3upDNTRFbkAa3bazMbdBv6PLFusb2AXXh87dx7kWgKaQ/s320/lenka.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583135997715926690" /></a><br /><br />Lenka told her own story to Uri Geller, a firm friend in later years, thanks to their shared interest in the supernatural. Her husband, a Dutch pilot, was, like Tretchi’s wife, somewhere overseas in limbo, and, on the night she first met Tretchikoff, he looked at her across the dinner table in an uncomfortable way, then asked her to pose for him naked. When she bridled at the suggestion, he laughed at her prudishness, telling her that only if every part of her figure was perfect would he consider painting her, and if he did, she would be a lucky woman. Lenka knew “the Mad Russian” already by reputation: by night he painted portraits for 40 guineas a canvas, but refused to sell the canvasses he painted for himself by day. She posed for him every Sunday in his tiny lodgings. It took longer to finish the picture than it did for Tretchi to get Lenka into his narrow bed.<br /><br />The artist moved in with Lenka, but would only make love at weekends, because he claimed he was unable to paint for twenty four hours after sex. Even less congenially, their love-nest was continually raided by Japanese soldiers, convinced that Tretchi was a spy. One night he was arrested on suspicion of blowing up an oil tanker, and slashed with a ceremonial sword during the interrogation. The superstitious Lenka visited a wise-woman and promised to give up what was most precious to her in exchange for Tretchi’s freedom. When he was released without charge two days later, she gave the old woman her most valuable batik.<br /><br />But was the batik Lenka’s most precious treasure, or Tretchi himself? It wasn’t long before she had to give him up too. It began when she took him to a séance, at which the previously sceptical painter asked the spirit guide where his wife and child were. The answer came back: S.O.U.T.H. Tretchi subsequently put the Red Cross on the trail of the supernatural tip-off and tracked down his family in South Africa. But before leaving the séance, the artist had a few more questions for the spirits. “Will I become a famous painter, and how far will my fame spread?” W.O.R.L.D. “What will be my most famous painting?” O.R.I.E.N.T.A.L. L.A.D.Y.<br /><br />Lenka disappears from the official biography of Vladimir Tretchikoff as soon as he set off for Cape Town to be reunited with his wife and daughter. But that is no way to write out a muse from any artist’s story. Luckily she herself has shared a little more with her friend Uri Geller. Tretchikoff went to South Africa with her blessing because, she said, she could compete with any woman but not with his child. She even helped him pack his canvasses, which he’d been hoarding for years ready for the one-man exhibition that he was certain would make his fortune. Lenka extracted one promise from him: to give a canvas to his wife Natalie. He did, and the canvas she chose was the portrait of Lenka wearing a red jacket. “Wearing”, that is, in the loosest sense, since all it covers are her shoulders. Did Natalie know that Lenka had been Tretchi’s de facto wife throughout the war years? Why did she choose to have her love rival’s triumphant breasts pertly waving at her from the wall every day? <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwuGHOp7KxWxT4CaFR-yfWB1lpPZlXpfLbSuur_Kd0oT3tV15ir27VBBfKd_lhHrZ-yvRLqRglwTpl7Z3GCHmlnpdaZ5Qx3-McTcnoIT2Bx9ZzZWPOq60v_CZP_SL35-m_OQ/s1600/natalietheartistswife.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 220px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwuGHOp7KxWxT4CaFR-yfWB1lpPZlXpfLbSuur_Kd0oT3tV15ir27VBBfKd_lhHrZ-yvRLqRglwTpl7Z3GCHmlnpdaZ5Qx3-McTcnoIT2Bx9ZzZWPOq60v_CZP_SL35-m_OQ/s320/natalietheartistswife.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583136247744465938" /></a><br /><br />Tretchi’s portrait of his mistress is in stark contrast to the portrait of his wife. Like so much of the artist’s work, subtlety doesn’t come into it. Whereas Lenka is a feast of warm naked flesh set off by a “scarlet woman’s” jacket, Natalie The Artists Wife is clad in brown, with skin of a blueish tinge, in arguably Tretchikoff’s drabbest colour scheme ever. Vladimir boasted that living with him was sometimes heaven, sometimes hell, but usually purgatory. “Longsuffering” is the word that springs to mind looking at the portrait of his wife. Who knows? Perhaps his muse Lenka had other reasons for “giving him up”. Maybe two years of keeping house for a fastidious and demanding artist were enough for her.<br /><br />What’s more, when Tretchikoff took off with his hoarded canvasses on his phenomenally successful world tour (as predicted by the spirit guides, and funded by the spiritualist Rosecrucian Order, in a self-fulfilling prophecy), he was not constrained by the need to paint during the day, and was therefore able to cast off sexual abstention. So Tretchi hooked up with his old flame again in London in 1958. While over 200, 000 people flocked to his one-man exhibition in Harrods, Tretchi took Lenka to bed for what she described as a four-day lovemaking marathon. That’s when Tretchi confessed to his mistress that he had sold the Red Jacket painting, even though theoretically it belonged to his wife so wasn’t his to sell. Lenka was appalled and warned him he would have bad luck without her portrait. <br /><br />Tretchi took no notice of his mistress’s warning, but not long after his return to South Africa, his pink Cadillac overturned in a road accident. It took a transfusion of 20 pints of blood to bring him back from death’s door. Still Tretchi didn’t buy back the portrait of Lenka until he was nearly killed a second time in another car crash. Then finally he conceded his muse might have a point, reacquired Red Jacket for his wife, and lived to be 92.<br /><br />As for the Chinese Girl - the painting I bring to life in my cabaret show, and the one looking down at me mysteriously from my bedroom wall – it isn’t Lenka. At least, not officially. The first model for the painting was said to be a member of South Africa’s Chinese community. But according to other accounts, the painting, completed in 1950, was begun in Java in 1946, before Tretchikoff got to South Africa. To complicate matters further, the portrait we know is not of the first sitter anyway. The original canvas of the Chinese Girl was slashed, along with 14 others, when intruders broke into Tretchi’s Cape Town home, enraged by the artist’s controversial drawing Black and White, which caused outrage throughout Apartheid South Africa. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7tc4bvsx7z_PH2Q-r7nc00b3ZwsIPm_DDPNBhUUaQqzMcurGiT2SuXTV46uV8rj0L2u4w_XbQDWYZNttjQliuchs4lJgdLrs0e8Wr6B2g-JjP0wY2jB_Apoam3ARJvAD1LA/s1600/blackandwhite.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7tc4bvsx7z_PH2Q-r7nc00b3ZwsIPm_DDPNBhUUaQqzMcurGiT2SuXTV46uV8rj0L2u4w_XbQDWYZNttjQliuchs4lJgdLrs0e8Wr6B2g-JjP0wY2jB_Apoam3ARJvAD1LA/s320/blackandwhite.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583136458510437618" /></a><br /><br />The second model for the Chinese Girl was reputedly the daughter of a restaurant owner in San Francisco. Yet there is something Eurasian about the features of the woman with the blue-green face in the painting. By 1950 when he finished the picture, Tretchikoff had been apart from his half-Dutch, half-Malaysian muse for four years. And South Africa was a long way from the oriental lands where he had first found the inspiration to paint. Tretchikoff himself said his paintings were not real women’s portraits, but a fantasy of womanhood from his own imagination. Whoever sat for him in a golden Chinese brocade gown, whether in South Africa or in San Francisco, the real “blue” woman who epitomised longing and absence in the artist’s imagination wasn’t either of them. It was Lenka, the woman who wasn’t there. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZB2oS2nXZr4A2BMr5724mEnq8vI0nKyniuE5Pvder6mi2VKsgPukc9qxYC122jtklh1bqdq-BOx6Ihyphenhyphen06r8gMaJ_3yZIPnwjHe5dBDOvky46FMyIDxiJZPPSSToT_cDQqg/s1600/Tretchi_Lenka_web_resolution.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ZB2oS2nXZr4A2BMr5724mEnq8vI0nKyniuE5Pvder6mi2VKsgPukc9qxYC122jtklh1bqdq-BOx6Ihyphenhyphen06r8gMaJ_3yZIPnwjHe5dBDOvky46FMyIDxiJZPPSSToT_cDQqg/s320/Tretchi_Lenka_web_resolution.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583136720521088514" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tricity Vogue’s debut album, The Blue Lady Sings is available from her website: <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/">tricityvogue.com</a><br />Her one-woman show will appear at the <a href="http://www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk/ticketing/listing.aspx?ev=2636&et=20&ed=13053#">Brighton Fringe Festival</a> in May 2011, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2011.</span><br /><br />Photograph of Tretchikoff and Lenka by kind permission of <a href="http://www.danielstevenson.co.uk/daniel_stevenson_vladimir_tretchikoff.html">Yvonne du Toit</a><br /><br />All other pictures by kind permission of the <a href="http://vladimirtretchikoff.com/">Tretchikoff Foundation</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-63878066662811354052010-09-04T18:20:00.002+01:002010-09-04T18:26:55.616+01:00All About The CostumesI love dressing up. That’s the reason I was lured away from ‘serious’ jazz (if I was every serious in the first place) and into cabaret.<span style=""> </span>To me the whole point of being on stage is the excuse it gives me to wear a really fabulous gown.<span style=""> </span>The Blue Lady has not one but two costume designers, because she’s even more high-maintenance than her creator.<span style=""> </span>The look of the original 1958 painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff (once available, framed, for eleven shillings and sixpence from Boots The Chemist, and a must-have in every 60s home) was recreated by production designer Salvatore Forino.<span style=""> </span>Salvatore also persuaded the Japanese wig dressers working on Theatre de Complicité’s show at the Barbican to show him how to set the wig like the painting then bake it in the oven for eight hours so it would hold the shape. “This is not real hair!” they said, appalled.<span style=""> </span>I bought it for £12 from Brixton Market, so I’m not surprised.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Blue Lady’s 1920s blues vamp costume was created by fashion designer Stephane St Jaymes, who’s been making me larger-than-life creations for six years now.<span style=""> </span>It includes £75-worth of sequinned fringing, and by sheer coincidence it exactly matches the description of a fantasy dress I included in a short story called Gown Envy I wrote about five years ago.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the last couple of weeks before the Edinburgh festival I was ricocheting across London between these two geniuses with arms full of crystal organza, paper flowers, Indian brocade, and long round tubes of foam as they magicked up two more incarnations for the Blue Lady specially for my Fringe run.<span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">You can see the fruits of their labours in this photo album:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=190528&id=538496777&l=36e5afb98a">http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=190528&id=538496777&l=36e5afb98a</a><br /><span style=""></span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-51872910948534637662009-02-16T02:19:00.007+00:002009-02-17T11:53:00.668+00:0025 Confessions about how I became what I am1. I am named after a fridge. I was given this name by my best friend, Edward Hollis, while staying with him in Edinburgh in 1995, 9 years before Tricity Vogue came to life and performed on stage under the name. Ed’s mother had a 60s fridge with the words “Tricity Vogue” inscribed on it. She may even have it still, somewhere in darkest Totnes.<br /><br />2. Edward Hollis is therefore the begetter of Tricity Vogue. This is the nearest I ever got to consummating my deep love for him. He is the man for whom and about whom I wrote the song “The man I love loves only men”. <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/Music/the_man.htm">http://tricityvogue.com/Music/the_man.htm</a>. Loving someone you can’t have is quite possibly the most powerful creative inspiration there is.<br /><br />3. I first had the idea for who Tricity Vogue would be in 1999 and I pitched it to a woman who ran a cabaret agency. “I can’t see the point of hiring a woman to wear fabulous gowns and sing jazz songs,” she said. “I might as well hire a drag queen who can do it better.” I confided what she had said to my boss and mentor of the time, physical theatre guru Joss Houben (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/jan/16/theatre">http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/jan/16/theatre</a>), and he told me to take absolutely no notice and do what I wanted anyway. It took me 5 years to follow his advice. “Do as you please” is, ironically, one of the hardest lessons to learn.<br /><br />4. Performance poet Aoife Mannix was the midwife of Tricity Vogue. She it was who in 2003 took me along with her to a poetry and music night, where she was featured on the bill, and insisted that I put my name down for an open mic spot. The open mic performer before me was so terrible that the host decided to ditch the next spot, but by that time I had geared myself up to perform, so I browbeat him into letting me have the microphone by promising to be quick. I told the audience that my Big Band had stood me up, so they would have to imagine them on stage with me, and then I sang my song “Well I didn’t want you anyway” acapella.<br /><br />5. I have sung with a real life 22-piece Big Band only once in my life. It was about 12 years ago, in Nottingham. My first couple of numbers went well, then I got pissed at the bar with a seasoned old jazzer who kept buying me drinks and telling me about 1930s singers I sounded a bit like. When I went onstage to sing my final number, Hey Big Spender, I started singing in the wrong place. Half the band followed me and half of them followed the score, with the result that the whole number collapsed. The conductor managed to bring them back together to finish the tune and give me the Look of Death at the same time. Funnily enough they never invited me to sing with them again, and I learned a valuable lesson about drinking on the job. Honest.<br /><br />6. I wrote my first “Tricity Vogue” song “Well I didn’t want you anyway” the day after a night of romance with a work colleague. Under the eyes of the whole office, I had invited him for a coffee, and when we were alone I asked him if I could see him again. He told me he was too neurotic for a relationship. I told him I didn’t want a relationship, just another shag… but nothing doing. I wrote the lyrics (and the tune, in my head) as soon as I got back to my desk, and emailed them to a friend, who emailed me back with the words, “You’re mad.” <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/Music/well_i.htm">http://tricityvogue.com/Music/well_i.htm</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfSo4um8Y8A&feature=channel_page">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfSo4um8Y8A&feature=channel_page</a><br /><br />7. Rosa Conrad is the Fairy Godmother of Tricity Vogue. All I had were a bunch of melody lines and lyrics, and no idea how to turn them into proper songs that a band could play. I sang them to Rosa and she put chords to them and made them real. She was always baffled by my awe at this feat: “But the chords were implied in your tune already,” she protested. I maintain that she has Magic Ears.<br /><br />8. The words and tune to “Under Your Thumb” were written after a conversation I had about my love-life while on my way to the gym. My confidante remarked “Well, you’ve certainly got him under your thumb.” I told her that actually it was the other way round, and then I wrote the whole song in my head, including the key change, while I was getting changed into my yoga kit in the locker room. <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/Music/under_your.htm">http://tricityvogue.com/Music/under_your.htm</a><br /><br />9. I came up with “St Tropez” after a Fat Cat gentleman friend of mine told me he wanted me to write a song about him. I don’t think this was exactly the song he was hoping for. He stopped taking me out for expensive dinners shortly afterwards. <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/Music/st_tropez.htm">http://tricityvogue.com/Music/st_tropez.htm</a><br /><br />10. The worst chat up line anybody ever used on me was “You’ve got great ovaries.” This did not work on me, and neither did the seductive prod in the stomach that went with it.<br /><br />11. The worst post-seduction line anybody ever used on me was “We have barely scratched the surface of our relationship, and already I’m infected.” I left him to lick his wounds on his own.<br /><br />12. The most effective chat up line anybody ever used on me was “I am dying of a fatal illness. You may be the last lover I ever have.” He’s still alive and I wasn’t.<br /><br />13. Dress designer Stephane St Jaymes was the Nursery Nurse of Tricity Vogue. While we sat together discussing ideas for my first dress, we also debated Tricity’s family history. According to Stephane, Miss Vogue was conceived when the Royal Train came off the rails somewhere in Yorkshire, and the King invited a local northern wench to come and entertain him in his carriage while he waited for his train to be fixed. Alternatively, I suspected that Miss Vogue’s mother had worked behind the bar in a northern Jazz Club, and was such a conscientious groupie that she was unable to identify which of the many jazzers to pass through her establishment was the father.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpA5rpsLwja1N19qCuAkQRlvTx_u6JIbSKGiofyA6KfWb6eg-YqCU_4WnwFSaPKPXYdH2z2alDvJhCz_Vc3LKU3MPe2cikLu8Uczemb2U1Snd8H-IPzF0mWnfW4AyePekpYw/s1600-h/tricitysings.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpA5rpsLwja1N19qCuAkQRlvTx_u6JIbSKGiofyA6KfWb6eg-YqCU_4WnwFSaPKPXYdH2z2alDvJhCz_Vc3LKU3MPe2cikLu8Uczemb2U1Snd8H-IPzF0mWnfW4AyePekpYw/s320/tricitysings.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303214805154906770" border="0" /></a>14. My first band was called The Tricity Vogue Sextet. There were only five of us but I thought of my dress designer Stephane as the sixth member of the band. Also, I wanted to call the band something with the word ‘sex’ in it. We performed our first gig at the Lincoln Lounge, Kings Cross, on Tuesday 16 March 2004. Stephane was still sewing me into my gown in the Lincoln Lounge’s beer cellar minutes before I first walked on stage. Stephane’s best friend Darcy added the final touch by painting in my lips in bright scarlet and adding huge dollops of lip-gloss. I had been planning on keeping my make up subtle. However, there was no mirror in the beer cellar so I was none the wiser until after the gig. I have never looked back.<br /><br />15. On the day of my first band gig I took the day off work to prepare, and that afternoon while I was walking along Neal Street in white sunglasses I was stopped by a young man who asked me the name of the band I was in, because he could tell just by looking at me that I must be in a band. I took this as a good omen.<br /><br />16. That same afternoon I bumped into an old flame while walking along Carnaby Street. He was with a bunch of work colleagues, who were evidently Very Important People. When he saw me he did a double take, tripped over, then pretended not to recognise me. I decided that this was the urban equivalent of a black cat crossing my path.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi647vjy6Qd8vPxpoHuE9usJ0frT1yIA8XRwA4F9ykZFGoHEImZ0AG9SUUsCEnN61sACYoU_0qFQExUUIIfyzbQidFpHpOhtNa8WMcZMA5rQjBUsT0Qqi9hVSu2j2so5PciLw/s1600-h/tricityback.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi647vjy6Qd8vPxpoHuE9usJ0frT1yIA8XRwA4F9ykZFGoHEImZ0AG9SUUsCEnN61sACYoU_0qFQExUUIIfyzbQidFpHpOhtNa8WMcZMA5rQjBUsT0Qqi9hVSu2j2so5PciLw/s320/tricityback.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303214806166601282" border="0" /></a><br />17. At the beginning of my first band gig I annoyed Donald the then barman of the Lincoln Lounge immensely by badgering him to turn off the lights so I could come on in the dark and do a ‘gown check’ before the band started, then turn them on again for the first number. At the end of the night, after everybody else had gone, he told me that I had a nice personality and everything but I really needed to work on my singing voice because I had murdered a couple of the numbers. I was, naturally, devastated. When I reported this feedback to Stephane, he informed me that he recognised Donald from Madam Jojo’s and that Donald was in fact an ex drag queen who had him(her)self frequently sung on stage. Stephane attributed Donald’s critique of my performance to ‘gown envy’. On learning that my critic was a drag queen, the rest of the band burst into a rendition of “Donald where’s your trousers?”<br /><br />18. I learned how to put on false eyelashes from Stephane, himself an ex drag queen, and he also gave me my first lessons in stagecraft, based on what he had learned during his own time wearing gowns (before he got bored of having to wax his chin every day - something which I don’t have to do, luckily). “Never mind what the band are doing behind you,” he said, “You can’t afford to take your attention off the audience for a moment, or you’ll lose them.”<br /><br />19. I learned my first ukelele chords from my singing partner Miss Honey Mink, who has a dayjob as a children’s entertainer and runs a ukelele class for children called “Uke Can Do It”. The first time I played ukelele on stage was with her, at Cheese and Crackers on the Battersea Barge. She and I walked on in our evening gowns and explained our Big Band had stood us up, so we were going to recreate the Big Band sound on two ukeleles instead. We then performed the Big Band Blues together. <a href="http://tricityvogue.com/Music/big_band.htm">http://tricityvogue.com/Music/big_band.htm</a><br />At the point where the horn section should have come in, Honey launched into a kazoo solo that brought the house down. From that night on I was hooked on the ukelele and bought my first pink Mahalo on ebay shortly afterwards.<br /><br />20. The first song I wrote on the ukelele was “Aint Gonna Get No Sleep Tonight” about waiting in for a booty call. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUxtrITgVI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUxtrITgVI</a><br />The tune is a straight rip-off from a spiritual called “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho”. Only one audience member has ever spotted this, and he was a jazz buff from New Orleans. Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind, and even thought my act of profane plagiarism was in the true spirit of jazz.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq54YSgYbc-PcDxAFKMN0eQN6JzdHeGXd4jfmhxYgIe5rVyEmkBK1nrSjbTKsmvH2U9G-FWqG06XQzyrOWzNGGrxW66fo9QqUx0zjAUKFmigdSoQ90WAh_L0amMjDW3psZ4Q/s1600-h/2562223419_47958f9d57_b.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 306px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq54YSgYbc-PcDxAFKMN0eQN6JzdHeGXd4jfmhxYgIe5rVyEmkBK1nrSjbTKsmvH2U9G-FWqG06XQzyrOWzNGGrxW66fo9QqUx0zjAUKFmigdSoQ90WAh_L0amMjDW3psZ4Q/s320/2562223419_47958f9d57_b.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303214800624210242" border="0" /></a>21. In 2008 Stephane made me a new black and white gown for the Tricity Vogue Slinktet’s gig at the Scala for White Mischief. Once again, it wasn’t finished until the last moment, and Stephane had to thrust his way past the bouncers on the door to bring it to me in the dressing room, where he proceeded to shoehorn me into it in a manner that caused even the world-weary Mr Dusty Limits to raise his eyebrows. When I was about to go on, I realised that the dress was so tight I couldn’t actually lift my legs to climb onto the stage, and had to ask Mr Limits to give me a hand up. Stephane pointed out afterwards that I could have actually hitched the skirt up. This did not occur to me at the time.<br /><br />22. After I came off stage at the Scala in my new gown, I shared a cigarette with Stephane down in the smoker’s courtyard, and he said to me, “You are the best drag queen I know.” I glowed with pride.<br /><br />23. Shortly afterwards my boyfriend dumped me for looking too much like a drag queen and not enough like a real woman.<br /><br />24. Tricity Vogue is about to give birth to a daughter – the Blue Lady. The birth of this new cabaret character will take place at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern at Dusty Limit’s night Kunst on Friday 27 February. The Blue Lady will be born exactly nine months after my boyfriend dumped me. My ex is therefore the begetter of the Blue Lady. Dusty Limits will be her Midwife, production designer Salvatore Forino will be her Nursery Nurse, and Rosa Conrad will, once again, be her Fairy Godmother.<br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.myspace.com/kunstuberalles">www.myspace.com/kunstuberalles</a><br /><br />25. Creating the Blue Lady is my way of dealing with the break up, in lieu of throwing plates, screaming or losing the plot generally. Then again, maybe painting my face blue and dressing up as a painting is losing the plot. Or maybe losing someone you love is the most powerful creative inspiration there is.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-11291603643629336522009-01-16T02:37:00.003+00:002009-01-16T02:39:05.373+00:00Recorder RebelsBonding with your gig-mates is one of the things that makes gigging so delightful (among many other things, because, let's face it, as jobs go, it's not exactly going down the mines), and when someone you think is really brilliant rings you up and says "Will you do a gig with me?" it makes you feel a bit like a teenager being asked out on a date by the person whose name you've been writing on your exercise book for months.<br /><br />A couple of weeks before Christmas I was waiting in the Playhouse theatre lobby, about to go and see La Cage Aux Folles, when I got just such a dream phone call from guitarist and ukeleleist extraordinaire, Martin Wheatley. He asked me if I'd do a gig with him that Saturday for a birthday party at a venue near Euston. Now this is the man who I've not only heard accompanying the stunning Cousin Alice with exquisite lightness of touch, but also the man who can play 'the dam busters' on a single ukelele and make it sound like the entire orchestra. I said yes immediately, even though I already had two gigs on that Saturday - one in the afternoon, and one late night - and the reason I said yes was purely and simply because it was Martin, and I knew that getting the chance to sing with him was going to be like a Christmas present all by itself.<br /><br />Then it turned out that the gig he was asking me to do was the very gig that I'd actually turned down a few days before because I was already booked up. And so I had been - until Martin asked me. See what happened there? I got seduced into doing the gig purely and simply for the pleasure of working with one of the best musicians in London, and sure enough it turned out, miraculously, that there was room to fit a third gig in between the other two after all. If any musician ever tries to tell you that they're only doing it to make a living, don't believe them. They're doing it because they love music. (This is why musicians almost never get paid what their services are actually worth.)<br /><br />Martin picked me up in the car from Volupte after my afternoon gig, and gave me a lift to the bar where the gig was - but when we got there we discovered that we were an hour and a half early, and the venue was locked and dark. So we pulled into a parking space around the corner and ran through a few numbers together on the ukeleles, using a torch to light the cab of his people-carrier enough to see the chord charts - because we hadn't actually had a chance to rehearse a single thing beforehand. This may seem shocking - either the bit where I'm sitting in a parked car in the dark while a strange man gets his instrument out, or the bit where he and I are about to play a 90 minute gig completely unrehearsed (which one you find the more shocking will depend on your musical background, probably).<br /><br />But it's not really that shocking when you consider that there is a huge back catalogue of jazz standards that most jazzers know like the back of their hands, all of which Martin has been playing for decades probably, and many of which I've now been singing for 15 years too. All the musicians need to know is the singer's key, and they're off. And as for me, I never have a clue what the tempo and the style is going to be until they start - which is exactly why I've always got such a kick out of singing jazz with a 'scratch' band. It's a musical rollercoaster. The Slinktet have been going for nearly 5 years now and I absolutely love rehearsing and performing our own material, but I also get a wicked thrill out of going back to my old edge-of-seat ways and flying by the seat of my pants for the odd gig too. Especially when the musician flying the plane is as skilled a pilot as Mr Wheatley.<br /><br />Having run through a few numbers quickly that we'd both be able to do on ukelele together, Martin pulled his car around to the front of the bar again, only to discover that it was still closed. So back we went to our backstreet parking space. But instead of doing some more rehearsing, we started to chat about how we'd first got into music as children, and a conversation began about our first instrument - the recorder.<br /><br />It turned out that we had both ended up as musicians despite, rather than because of, the start that we'd had on that unassuming little instrument. Martin revealed that as a child he had actually been thrown out of his school recorder group. Why? Because he had been caught cheating. How had he been cheating? Shockingly, instead of sight reading the music in front of him, he was listening to the tune and copying what was being played. This was considered extreme disobedience by his music teachers, hence his expulsion from recorder paradise.<br /><br />My own recorder misadventures began when my grandfather (who was an antiques dealer, rather more of the Arthur Daily than the Lovejoy school of the genre), gave me a bakelite recorder so I could join the school recorder group (from which I'd already been excluded for a year by the fact that my parents considered it a waste of money to splash out on a bit of plastic for me to blow down). Unfortunately the bakelite recorder, while a charming antique to look at, was out of tune with all the other recorders in the school recorder group. Thus, whenever we played a tune, there was always that hideous buzzing sound that you get when somebody in the group plays the wrong note. Except in this case, nobody was playing a wrong note, it was the recorder itself that was out of tune, as my recorder teacher discovered when she took the offending instrument off me and tried playing it herself.<br /><br />After (I suspect) a discreet word in my parents' ear, I finally got a proper bona fide Aulos soprano recorder of my own (which I still have somewhere, complete with deep teeth-marks on the mouthpiece). But my recorder misadventures didn't end there. A few years later my mum gave me a note to give to my recorder teacher. I didn't read it (because I was that kind of a goody goody kid) so I had no idea what my mum had said in it, until my recorder teacher called me over after practice and said to me very gently that it was okay to make the tune up by listening to it and then copying it, because that was actually something called 'playing by ear' rather than cheating. So I wasn't to worry about the fact that I wasn't doing it properly - in fact I should be proud of the fact that I was able to play by ear because in fact that was actually a gift that not everybody had. To be honest I was a bit baffled by this little pep talk, because I wasn't aware that I'd been doing anything wrong in the first place - my mum hadn't actually shared any of her concerns about my musical shortcomings with me - she'd just gone straight over my head to the teacher. And, in fact, it never occurred to me to report back to my mum what the teacher had said. So my mum went on thinking that I was a musical retard - possibly to this day, who knows?<br /><br />I still can't really read music, to be honest. That's where years of cheating gets you. But what I can do is sing, unrehearsed, with someone I've never sung with before, in front of an audience, and sound like I know what I'm doing. It's the ultimate bluff. Except it turns out not to be a bluff at all, but, in some people's books at least, what you're actually supposed to do.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-91476906101273616052008-11-05T01:20:00.002+00:002008-11-05T01:27:53.121+00:00"Just Be Yourself"When I was little my mum always used to dole out the same piece of advice whenever I was stressing about something I had to do in front of people: Just be yourself. As soon as I would hear this I would be crippled by anxiety: I didn't know how to do that because I didn't know who 'myself' was. My mum was always baffled by her strange, apparently alien, daughter, who seemed to be making a meal out of what to her was the most basic and fundamental of tasks. Why couldn't I just walk into a room like a 'normal' person without twitching obsessively at my clothes and shrinking into myself, or talking in a weird put-on voice and using words that I didn't really understand the meaning of? Admittedly my mum snapping at me "everybody's noticing you fidgeting with your dress like that" did not make matters any better, although in retrospect I can see that all she was trying to do was snap me out of what was, to her, a strange and unhealthy self-consciousness.<br /><p class="blogContent">I was round at Pete Saunders' place today, rehearsing with him in his shed (don't knock it, he's got a proper studio set up in there, complete with PA system and a Roland keyboard with all the boy-toy piano voices you could ever desire, including a 'scat vocal' one which kept him happily amused for hours today), and when we stopped for lunch we were discussing the things we learn with more years performance experience and I was saying that newer performers are less able to be themselves on stage. Then I realised something: that the quest to learn how to be myself - onstage and therefore consequentially offstage - was probably the drive that started me performing in the first place.<br /><br />Is it because I didn't know what to do when my mother instructed me to "just be myself" that I became a performer at all?<br /><br />I suggested to Pete that all performers do it because they are secretly looking for an answer to the question "How do I be myself?" Pete disagreed - he said that the thing that probably drove him into performing when he was a teenager was a desire to escape the need to answer the question "Who am I?" altogether.<br /><br />So there you have it. The difference between male and female performers. And/or possibly the difference between males and females full stop. The girls are looking for an answer to the question "who am I?" and the boys are looking for a way to avoid ever having to answer it.<br /><br />Deep. (Or possibly not.)<br /><br />xxx</p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-69981728124266522852008-10-29T23:32:00.001+00:002008-10-29T23:38:00.652+00:00I just can’t get you outta my head you b***ardJust got back home from a rehearsal with the band in the Cellar of Joy and I'm a bit pissed, as I took along a bottle of finest South African Sabernet Cauvignon from Lidl (only £2.99 because of the typo on the label). I've just had a lovely evening playing through our set for tomorrow's gig at Volupte, and I must say I thought we sounded better and better as the evening went on and I got through more and more of the bottle. Even though our new bass player Warwick "the thumb" Johnson didn't make it. He rang up to explain he was trapped because he lives in Finsbury Park and there was an Arsenal match on which meant that he couldn't drive in or out of his street without sitting in a queue of traffic for an hour. He told me very apologetically he'd had no idea there was a match on tonight when we booked the rehearsal.<br /><br />It was only when I got to the rehearsal and passed on this news that Sir Fitzroy informed me that The Thumb is a massive Spurs fan, and Spurs just happen to be playing Arsenal tonight. I was shocked - surely you don't mean he might be watching the match? Fitz, who is also an ardent Spurs fan, just raised his eyebrows quizzically. But I wouldn't think that of The Thumb for a moment, as Spurs fans, in my experience, are men of honour. I know absolutely nothing about football, but my dad is a Spurs fan, and of course he is the man my heart belongs to, and what's more I have been dumped by not one but two avid Arsenal fans, so I know which team I'll be offering my services to should they ever require a jazz singer at any point to do a spot of scatting for morale purposes.<br /><br />Tonight we were determined to break the mould of Slinktet rehearsals and bash through the set list in an efficient and focused manner instead of pissing about and telling bizarre anecdotes. We were doing fairly well until Connie Vanderlay came up with the game of putting "you b***ard" after every one of our song titles:<br /><br />Peel Me A Grape You B***ard<br />Should I Stay Or Should I Go You B***ard<br />Why Don't You Do Right You B***ard<br />Sweet Dreams You B***ard<br /><br />and so on.<br /><br />Then Fitz started an anecdote about a trombone quartet him and his mates once decided to form called "The B***ards" (pronounced to rhyme with cards or shards) because they were always calling each other b***ard. I was unable to ascertain whether this level of rudeness is exclusive to trombonists or applies to all brass players. (Maybe they should form a group called The Brasstards.) This prompted our arch anecdotalist Earl Mysterio to remember a story about an elderly waiting punter telling the man next to him how much better it was using a ticketing system rather than having to queue - because some "cheeky bitches" had pushed in front of him in a queue the day before, so he'd spat on them, so they'd called him a "b***ard", so he'd asked them if they had any evidence that they'd been born in wedlock themselves.<br /><br />By this point the conversation had moved a very long way away from what we were supposed to be talking about, which was whether the stabs were on the beat or ahead of the beat in My Side of the Bed. Miraculously however we did manage to get through the whole set by quarter to ten and hit the road. I left the last glass of wine for Mysterio so I could cadge a lift home with Connie, who has just dropped me to my door because it was cold out and she is an angel.<br /><br />Do you know, this band has been together for four and a half years now and I still love hanging out with them - in fact I love hanging out with them more than ever. Rehearsals are getting to be one of my favourite things, even when they're conducted in a subterranean cellar with no heating and walls that shed chalky white deposits on your clothes - because when I'm at a gig I'm running around looking after the guest acts, or chatting to the audience, and I don't actually get any time with the other slinkers. But when we're rehearsing I get to be entertained by Mysterio's frankly surreal stream-of-consciousness stories, and Fresh's bon mots from behind the drums, and I get to actually look at my fellow slinkers instead of having my back to them the whole time like I do at a gig. And I even get to sit down.<br /><br />You lovely lot, you were sounding well groovy tonight. And that's not just the Sabernet Cauvignon talking<br /><br />xxxAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-44839892101814942982008-10-27T00:53:00.000+00:002008-10-27T00:54:53.204+00:00Nights at the OfficeI love my job. Because the place everyone else goes to get away from the stresses and strains of their job is actually the place I go to work. Which means my office is basically a cabaret club. And the things that are glamorous and escapist for the punters become my routine – it’s like everything’s flipped upside down. Now I’m gigging more often I’m generally at Volupte once or twice a week, and, as always happens once something starts to become more regular, patterns and rhythms begin to establish themselves. Here are some of the ritual patterns of a typical ‘night at the office’. <br /><br />There’s the meet-and-greet/soundcheck when everyone arrives dragging their gig bags on wheels, and we somehow manage to squeeze in a brief discussion about what numbers we’re going to do in between the conversations about who’s got a new coat and where it’s from (Amber Topaz wouldn’t tell me, to my frustration, even though hers is a one off anyway, so there is no danger of me turning up in a copycat green wool trench) and who’s in what state after last night and why (this conversation also includes the club staff as a rule, who are much more dedicated partygoers than us lightweight performers). Some people take the sound check more seriously than others. Amber’s is like a whole extra floorshow on top of the one she gives for the punters. Yesterday the band were running through “hot stuff”, which Beverley had just rehearsed with them, unbeknownst to Amber, and Amber jumped on the mic and started singing “I want some hot stuff baby tonight” in a broad Yorkshire accent. Beverley’s little face fell: “I’m not going to be able to sing that seriously now.” But she pulled it out of the hat for the show.<br /><br />Next come the dressing room rituals, involving claiming your bit of mirror and starting work on the make up, with accompanying ‘make up chitchat’ which can cover everything from the current economic climate to who would and who wouldn’t shag Beth Ditto. There’s generally some issue or other with nipple tassels, or pasties (not pronounced the Cornish way, incidentally – I remember being sternly corrected on that point by Gwendoline Lamour). Yesterday the issue was two burlesquers with the same set of black tassels. It’s bad form for two girls to go out wearing the same pasties, apparently – so one party nobly agreed to wear her Swarovski crystal ones instead, even though they were heavier and harder to twirl. Incidentally, I also learned that Anne Summers’ black nipple tassels are very hardwearing and an excellent buy, but the pastel coloured ones are rubbish as they shed diamante – so don’t buy those (in case you were planning to).<br /><br />Then there’s the arrival of the wine, which is always a high point. It’s generally delivered to the dressing room with a great flourish by the manager and met with squeals of appreciation. There’s always somebody who insists they won’t have any, then changes their mind as soon as it’s in front of them. Everybody has their foibles about what they need to drink before they go on. I have this neurotic need to down loads and loads of water which annoys the staff while they’re trying to set up because I’m always nicking water out of the jugs they’ve got ready for the customers, or helping myself from the tap behind the bar which is meant to be out of bounds to performers. Dusty Limits will only drink white wine before he performs, because red wine is too heavy and clogs him up. I’d been on the red wine before I went on the other day and I noticed it had given me purple teeth – but Dusty told me if I drank enough white wine it would cancel it out. So I did. It’s always a pleasure to discover new excuses for drinking more alcohol.<br /><br />Another favourite part of the routine is the bit where you get your dinner. It’s always a lottery, what the staff food is going to be, but on a good day it’ll be something fabulous like stuffed chicken breast and dauphinois potatoes. Sometimes it can look a bit weird, like the pumpkin lasagne, but it’s important to keep an open mind until you’ve tasted it. The girls all flirt outrageously with the chefs (and so do some of the boys) so they’ll feed us extra treats. I got a secret rum cheesecake all to myself the other day. I do think that giving people free food is one of the nicest things you can do for anyone – but especially for hand-to-mouth types like musicians and performers, who will generally spend their hard earned gig money on drink rather than waste it on a proper dinner. At least somebody’s looking out for us to make sure we get a square meal.<br /><br />Then comes the show itself, when you’ll step onstage and do exactly the same material you did at the last show and it will somehow weirdly come out completely different - because it’s the audience who give every show its own vibe. Another big part of the routine is a backstage discussion about the nature of the audience. Small but lively? Packed out but really flat? Into it but drunk and noisy? Polite but a bit on the quiet side? Or totally loving it? The quieter the audience, the harder work it is to win over the room – I’ve seen performers come off stage dripping with sweat and shaking from the effort of exuding energy. Sometimes you can really feel like it’s been a damp squib, only to have people from the audience coming up afterwards saying what a fantastic show it was and how they were completely blown away. They were just being blown away quietly. One of the great things about doing Pete Saunders’ Burlesque’n’Blues shows is that we do everything with a live band – singers and burlesquers alike – and there’s always something ad libbed and impromptu, or some collaboration, rather than everybody just doing their own thing one after the other. I had to get singer Buck Svizz on stage to be my stooge for my song “Sneaky” once because there wasn’t a single man in the audience (it was Saturday afternoon tea – which is hen city), and he walked onstage still eating a scone. There happened to be a line in the song that went “and what is the occasion that has merited you giving me these flowers – and cake?” and on that line Buck started pelting me with bits of scone. Brilliant. It was like the whole thing with the cake was a set up ready for that line, when he didn’t even know it was coming. This week the impromptu moment was an on-the-spot ensemble rendition of Hit The Road Jack as the finale. We had three girls around the mic belting it out, and even made up a dance routine. I’m not sure what the audience made of it - but we enjoyed ourselves.<br /><br />The other ritual element to every gig is the storytelling. An old flame once told me that artists are longer lived than everyone else, not because they live more years, but because they pack more experience into their lives (he was speaking with authority as an accountant). But it’s not only the actual lived experiences us arty types pack in, it’s all the imagined ones as well – and all the ones we collect from each other in the form of pre and post gig anecdotes. These anecdotes are an integral part of the gig routine, mainly because, as a famous musician once said, performing is about 10% stage time and 90% waiting around. (This quote was offered up by the Slinktet’s guitar supremo Earl Mysterio as an anecdote to fill our own waiting around time before a gig. I now can’t remember who the famous musician was, which is a bit rubbish. Probably someone from a cool boy’s band, like The Rolling Stones or something.) The function of gig storytelling is thus to fill the waiting around percentage of the evening. The stories can be about anything, but ideally, they will reveal some behind-the-scenes secrets or describe a shocking and extreme experience that happened to either the storyteller or their ‘friend’.<br /><br />My ‘day job’ is meant to be writing stories, but I have to admit that time after time my feeble attempts at anecdotage pale in comparison to those offered up by my colleagues. Pete Saunders, being slightly longer lived than the rest of us (strictly in the ‘artist’ sense outlined above, of course), has some of the best. I talked about the time I wrote off my car skidding on an oil spill, and he topped it with the time he rolled his car over three times, miraculously got out, then had to decide whether or not to risk going back to free his girlfriend from the wreckage before the car blew up (he did – because he decided the social embarrassment of leaving her in the lurch outweighed the risk of being burnt to a crisp). I had a story about going to a carol service in Armley Jail when I was a kid which Vicious Delicious topped with a story about how she used to rent a flat in the Brixton prison complex with windows overlooked by all the prison cells, and got treated to a running commentary on everything she did in her flat from the prisoners. I also enjoyed the stories about what bored musicians get up to on the big musicals, after they’ve been performing exactly the same score, note for note, for a year. The entire orchestra playing a whole show naked on the last night of the run was my favourite.<br /><br />I’m back at Volupte twice next week – on Tuesday for the Lost Supper, and on Thursday for Club d’Amour – which means more treats. If I’m lucky, another chocolate cheese cake. And if I’m really lucky, some even more outrageous gig anecdotes to add to my collection. Plus, I’ll get to wear my gorgeous new black and white gown as well, which is a bit like getting to wear your wedding dress twice in one week. As jobs go, it’s not bad, is it?<br /><br />xxxAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-74783105454095833972008-10-14T00:40:00.007+01:002008-10-26T22:22:46.670+00:00Field Report<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi28sCUuEMOU_eyD_hS5_F55Bbn4yoyOCNNWOyEMoGPCawRtyQByJGk_P2aDZrYqNH0tYbPIq81APhzST8wyKwfE3enwPf0bkGCZrM198doo2AqIkmhBsQeVyj4v65xFyaY3w/s1600-h/n511449128_1092537_7071.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi28sCUuEMOU_eyD_hS5_F55Bbn4yoyOCNNWOyEMoGPCawRtyQByJGk_P2aDZrYqNH0tYbPIq81APhzST8wyKwfE3enwPf0bkGCZrM198doo2AqIkmhBsQeVyj4v65xFyaY3w/s320/n511449128_1092537_7071.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256787968473533378" border="0" /></a><br />Okay so it’s well over a month since I got back from my last festival, but since the photos from the Bestival antics have only just been posted online I feel both comforted that I am not the only one taking ages to record my summer and also spurred into finally getting around to jotting down a sort of addled postmortem diary of my own various festival misadventures.<br /><br />I actually blagged like mad to get to go to Camp Bestival, because my brother and sister-in-law were coming over with the kids from France for it and I thought it would be a bit special to meet up with them in a field. The very splendid Zoe of Time for Tease let me come and play her tent, after I nagged both Paul Martin and Kitty Bang Bang to put a word in with her for me. I gave Kitty a lift in my little Nissan micra and we shared my fish tent – we had great plans for a ‘Thelma and Louise’ adventure, which was a bit slow in getting started after I failed to get out of bed in time for that early start I’d been planning, although Kitty seemed strangely relieved to hear I’d be at least an hour late. When I rang her she picked up the phone and went “I’m awake! I’m awake!” which was somewhat suspicious… Then we had to stop en route so Kitty could buy a crate of cider (I’d bought my vodka and Pringles the day before so I was all stocked up with the essentials already). Then we had to turn back when Kitty realised she’d left her mobile phone at home. “If you realise you had it with you all along,” I warned her, as we crawled back through the north London traffic, “don’t tell me.” “I won’t,” she promised. When she bounced back in the car and I asked her where it was, she promised she’d found it by the side of her bed, and looked suitably sincere. Once we got to the actual festival she ran out of credit after the first day, so a fat lot of good it did having her phone with her anyway. She was bouncing off the ceiling with boredom four hours into the car journey, while we were stuck in the queue to get onto the festival site. Two hours to get to Dorset and another two hours to get two miles down a country lane. But we did succeed in erecting our fish tent and inflating our double air mattress with fearsome efficiency, which may have had something to do with the fact it was raining.<br /><br />The next day Paul L Martin turned up, somewhat anxious because he hadn’t braved a festival since he was seventeen, asking Zoe if her tent was ‘open’ so he could put his bag inside? I explained to him that tents didn’t actually have locks. But he was almost totally converted to the festival experience after learning to knit in the knitting tent, and spending Saturday night dancing on a chair to cheesy disco in the Lauderetta’s travel agency. Meanwhile Kitty and I lost each other on Saturday night and she found herself being ushered onto the mainstage along with Agent Lynch to do backing dancing for the Flaming Lips after she and Agent Lynch wandered backstage looking for a loo. While she was jumping up and down on the mainstage, I was singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ about six times in a row to my two year old nephew in an attempt to encourage him to go to sleep. Instead of which he kept jumping up and shouting “sing it again!” Luckily by then I’d drunk so much vodka I didn’t care how many times I sung it. Unlike everybody in the adjacent tents I suspect. Then again, they were all probably out watching the Flaming Lips – and Kitty’s impromptu backing dancing – on the mainstage.<br /><br />Sunday afternoon was spent largely showing off for the cameramen who were shooting backstage footage of the Time for Tease tent to pitch an idea for a documentary about burlesque to channel 4. That and eating vast amounts of cake. Oh that Lemon Drizzle cake was incredible. I also remember meeting up with my friend Chris and her two daughters in front of the mainstage, where Kitty and Chris’s eight year old daughter threw each other about and took bizarre photos of people’s feet while Suzanne Vega and Kate Nash represented pan-generational female talent onstage.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhjQS0hahuvITCX3Su86ULQxs2Fh7WhDuVjOkpMX-izTS9Pn3T728MqjvnHYwluahpcfhjuXVlvAtynhRBzl2fRWWA9SZGLkd6uNV0uHBdp1quh9vObY6qc79feS3WVTDUDg/s1600-h/n511449128_1092533_269.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhjQS0hahuvITCX3Su86ULQxs2Fh7WhDuVjOkpMX-izTS9Pn3T728MqjvnHYwluahpcfhjuXVlvAtynhRBzl2fRWWA9SZGLkd6uNV0uHBdp1quh9vObY6qc79feS3WVTDUDg/s320/n511449128_1092533_269.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256788270427191538" border="0" /></a><br />Kitty and I had to get up shockingly early on Monday to get Kitty back to London in time to work her shift in the pub, but just as I was getting up at 7.30 on Monday morning I bumped into Jonathan Mayor, an old friend from University now cutting a dash on the Manchester drag scene as a comedian and compere, just as he was returning to his tent to bed. He loudly declaimed his excitement at seeing me, then after about ten minutes of conversation actually realised where he knew me from, which elicited even louder declamations. Gratifyingly, he claimed I hadn’t aged a day and enquired if I had had surgery – I suspect a party-addled 7am perspective is far from the most searingly observant but nevertheless it was charming of him. I’m sure the rest of the campsite were equally delighted to hear our emotional reunion at seven in the morning as well.<br /><br />All in all, an utterly charming festival. And to cap it all, the Sunday Times Style magazine had a photographer taking pics of everybody which they posted up on the website mocked up as magazine covers. I went to a family party last weekend and was actually congratulated on being on the cover of the Sunday Times magazine. Even though it was completely fake, I still got a kick out of showing it off, especially to my ex, who was the one person I didn’t admit it wasn’t real to.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCuTWVtyT9_JID6CgCBYYipVAeTxY0_M9QI5SPKBlRCtHzLGzKMKGCdVPOrEQ63S9OWErairptSzT-FbZ24B9YrCls6tdSuKA6IPpJWDmtK2nXN_PQdWUqF6illaxvE8WHQQ/s1600-h/6936234631216674802.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCuTWVtyT9_JID6CgCBYYipVAeTxY0_M9QI5SPKBlRCtHzLGzKMKGCdVPOrEQ63S9OWErairptSzT-FbZ24B9YrCls6tdSuKA6IPpJWDmtK2nXN_PQdWUqF6illaxvE8WHQQ/s320/6936234631216674802.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256788602888904018" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I’d had so much fun at Camp Bestival that when I got not one but two calls asking if I wanted to come and perform at other festivals I was pretty into the idea, even if I was a bit worried about going on my own, especially to the one in Ireland. Karen the nice lady who invited me to Electric Picnic offered to not only pay my flight but also to send their hire car to pick me up and drive me to the festival site, and to feed me for the three days, so I was almost completely won over - and then ukelele troubadour Des O’Connor encouraged me to go by pointing out it would be an international gig, which meant I’d be able to describe myself as an international cabaret star afterwards – so I said yes. When Amanda from Stranger than Paradise asked me if I wanted to go to Bestival on the Isle of Wight with her I said yes much more quickly, which, in retrospect, was the more foolhardy decision of the two, but more of that later.<br /><br />Electric Picnic was in a place called Port Laoise west of Dublin, where, my dad tells me, there is also a famous prison (not that I could see it over the ferris wheel). My great uncle, who grew up in Ireland, carefully instructed me how to pronounce the place name properly, which stood me in good stead when I was asking directions to the bus stop at the airport. I managed to my tent up on my own in the dark, and then, just as I was pumping up the air mattress inside, I heard a voice outside saying “We’re coming into your tent”. It turned out some of my fellow festivalgoers were quite taken with the pictures of fish all over it. I told the guy that since he wanted to come in, he could pump up my air mattress while he was there, and he obligingly set to the foot pump while him and his girlfriend chatted about what they’d seen so far, and I fed them Oreo cookies. I was booked to play in a tent called Teas and Tarts by day and Tarts and Tease by night – which transformed from a demure tea shop into a sleazy den of vice complete with an Amsterdam-style red-light-district window complete with pole dancers - but I must admit I was slightly overwhelmed when I realised I was sharing the bill with acrobats, dancers, and huge high-octane bands. My little pink ukelele and I were no match for all that energy. Luckily I persuaded Simon the stage manager to let me go on first on the Saturday night, so at least the show could start small and build up. Oh and it also meant I could go on early and then get pissed of course. At least that was the plan, until I discovered that none of the bars appeared to be serving after 10.30pm. I honestly thought that the notoriously fun-loving Irish festivalgoers had drunk the bars dry – but found out next day that they closed the bars at 10.30pm every night routinely. Weird, since everything went on til 4am. Luckily for me, when I went back to Tarts and Tease and moaned about this sorry state of affairs, Simon said “But you’ve got a rider!” and produced a bottle of champagne. Now that’s what I call a rider. I was over the moon, and even the dire warning that it had cost about 60p from France and was dangerously hallucinogenic stuff didn’t prevent me from pouring almost the entire bottle into a pint glass and toddling off to the mainstage with it to watch George Benson, which was a pretty trippy show anyway, but whether or not that was down to the dodgy French knock-off champagne I couldn’t tell you.<br /><br />I felt like a proper grown-up festival-goer after managing an international festival all by myself, but I may have patted myself on the back a little to soon. Anyone who was at Bestival this year will know what’s coming. If I hadn’t been booked to perform I would probably have wimped out of going at all when the storm warnings started coming through, but you gotta be a trooper, right? I knew this was going to be a more extreme festival experience from the start, when a black van with black tinted windows pulled up to pick me up. It was like a grown-up version of the Scooby van, with a fur rug and a bead curtain inside, not to mention a vanful of sprawling pissed bodies dressed in fishnet tights, frilly knickers, huge hats, scull-print scarves and all the paraphernalia of hardcore festivalgoers. There was also an animatronic toy cat in there that purred and moved. A bourbon bottle was thrust into my hand the minute I clambered inside. It was about 11 in the morning.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQMdCUNAuUbceSEPwJ6hqMAi_o0b5brvtgudTqEutscZUBqGXNkMI7V4lNuaWYCIbt7VO6SI9p_-aQlUz3-MFxk6-VIjALI3M1b33qqU441bfton3lPNYoxawIOLCHohkJQ/s1600-h/n649725457_1263236_1504.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnQMdCUNAuUbceSEPwJ6hqMAi_o0b5brvtgudTqEutscZUBqGXNkMI7V4lNuaWYCIbt7VO6SI9p_-aQlUz3-MFxk6-VIjALI3M1b33qqU441bfton3lPNYoxawIOLCHohkJQ/s320/n649725457_1263236_1504.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261590403159693426" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zVI0XVeAF8NAiZCu2ZDYgUFyi-gGvvi5Apg39hY_zE3EmH0wO8ooy3585plnf8Xx9m0bA4aDQBHTnr1DbtQ7m1OdpMEwSg3TosGp7Wt6S9U4KVRx-ihpJ4CvMgBedb4T6A/s1600-h/n649725457_1263225_7256.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zVI0XVeAF8NAiZCu2ZDYgUFyi-gGvvi5Apg39hY_zE3EmH0wO8ooy3585plnf8Xx9m0bA4aDQBHTnr1DbtQ7m1OdpMEwSg3TosGp7Wt6S9U4KVRx-ihpJ4CvMgBedb4T6A/s320/n649725457_1263225_7256.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261590791514399762" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhPF_mtpLxs1qaIH24wN9NIVaIADmFI8pRRCJGdYx4cNP3tdMHhsFyliRoPae3O0CuP_FwnEViiV7-_XQtarN2gUQyVENwVrzz46Z1vBT-iuzfws7CXSCTPvG1EDoeUrt9A/s1600-h/n649725457_1263258_687.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhPF_mtpLxs1qaIH24wN9NIVaIADmFI8pRRCJGdYx4cNP3tdMHhsFyliRoPae3O0CuP_FwnEViiV7-_XQtarN2gUQyVENwVrzz46Z1vBT-iuzfws7CXSCTPvG1EDoeUrt9A/s320/n649725457_1263258_687.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261591028206769986" border="0" /></a><br />So much fun was had en route to the ferry port that we barely made the ferry by the skin of our teeth for the crossing, which was accompanied by loud tone-deaf singing on deck. By the time we made it to the festival site everyone except the driver was crashed out. Then we discovered that we couldn’t park in the artist’s carpark because it was flooded, and we couldn’t pitch tents in the artists’ camping because that was flooded too. There was some flouncing and stropping about how we were meant to be onstage in an hour so they better let us in, and this miraculously produced artist wristbands and opened the gates onto the main site for us, so we drove right onto the site and parked up behind the show tents. Then all we had to do was lug our stuff – which included 3 giant dogs’ heads - across a vast field of mud to the polka tent, which, as it turned out, was also awash with mud.<br />I had lugged my full length tasselled evening gown all the way across the field inside my gig bag but as soon as I saw that tiny tent, churned <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9IigG6XN7HhuJVg-BfF8mPXC5o96PQ4W2oZw4DSaxpvgf49e-1y1TbE46jQ70W0R-GBNlJBc7hq34VWQ6PpoPkKQpzhbDU8_03HYHFxrFISmmFu5angOKcORmoMzAi2o1iA/s1600-h/n649725457_1263264_3398.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9IigG6XN7HhuJVg-BfF8mPXC5o96PQ4W2oZw4DSaxpvgf49e-1y1TbE46jQ70W0R-GBNlJBc7hq34VWQ6PpoPkKQpzhbDU8_03HYHFxrFISmmFu5angOKcORmoMzAi2o1iA/s320/n649725457_1263264_3398.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261591310647012530" border="0" /></a>up with mud, and the stage covered with mud, and the back stage tent churned up with mud which was reached only from across a sea of mud my bottom lip started to quiver and I begged Amanda to please not make me dress up because I couldn’t wash or dry clean my gown without the tassels wrinkling up so if I got it muddy it would be lost to me forever. Amanda said she didn’t care what I wore onstage and told me to relax. Then we found a tiny unlit backstage tent behind the polka tent, and I started to put my make up on by torchlight. As soon as I’d finished, the stage manager came to tell us that there was another much bigger backstage tent with electric lighting in it on the other side of the Polka tent – but by that time I had switched into proper ‘trooper’ mode. I went onstage and led a drunken ukelele singalong starting with ‘Mud mud glorious mud’, encompassing most of the Jungle Book and concluding with Downtown, before conceding the stage to the real bands, and availing myself of the free rider, which was beer not champagne this time. Our strategy was to get drunk enough to stop caring about the sea of mud everywhere, which seemed to work, except that I still had to put my fish tent up. I managed it at 3 in the morning, but forgot about the air mattress, so I had to come back and pump that up at 4 in the morning. By 5 in the morning there were 3 of us crashed out in it, although fortunately the giant dog heads were left outside.<br /><br />The next day while I was exploring the site (slowly, as the mud was by then getting to that ‘hold on to your welly and pull it off your foot’ stage) I noticed a security guard taking photos of the festivalgoers walking past on his mobile phone. I asked him what he was taking pictures of, and he explained it was of the sight of all these people walking around in the mud apparently having a good time, because he’d never seen anything like it. In his country (Nigeria) this would be viewed as a natural disaster. Nothing would grow on this land for a year. Had these people really paid to do this? Could I explain why this was fun?<br /><br />By the time I got my fish tent home it was caked in mud, so I took it to the launderette and paid £6.50 for the giant washer. Then when I pulled it out, it flooded the floor of the launderette with water (which made me popular) so I bunged it in the dryer and shoved a pound in, because I couldn’t think of another way to get it dry with no washing line to hang it up from. When I pulled it out of the dryer the groundsheet had shrivelled up to half its former size and formed strange solid clumps of plastic, which were never going to resemble anything tent-shaped ever again. Yes, I had melted my tent.<br /><br />I could see this as a sign that I should quit festival-going now, before it gets any worse. Or as an opportunity to buy an even more fabulous-looking tent for next year’s adventures.<br /><br />I might not be able to explain to a baffled Nigerian security guard why it was fun, but something tells me that if anybody invites me to a festival again next year I’ll say yes like a shot. I haven’t been to Latitude yet. And then, there’s the really big one… Glastonbury. I mean, after Bestival, how disastrous can it be…?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eqJb3zi3PjPZKmsbn4N72meXBtCZI06neT3NU7aetcyb44CZ8gFQnAqXmaOQbEfnFbtHFmSq6ecRAGeT052xa3XW7Rhsf4HrO6Efs81Pcmz32dBX14FzJR4R4PaONqBikQ/s1600-h/n511449128_1092503_4231.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eqJb3zi3PjPZKmsbn4N72meXBtCZI06neT3NU7aetcyb44CZ8gFQnAqXmaOQbEfnFbtHFmSq6ecRAGeT052xa3XW7Rhsf4HrO6Efs81Pcmz32dBX14FzJR4R4PaONqBikQ/s320/n511449128_1092503_4231.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256788795817678818" border="0" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-43985829044351146522008-08-26T00:08:00.000+01:002008-08-26T00:09:25.401+01:00Edinburgh WaterIt was the first year I’d braved Edinburgh as a performer since a rather dubious production I was in while I was at university, which has pretty much scarred me for life, but luckily for me, lightweight that I am, one of my oldest and closest friends happens to live in Edinburgh in a flat right on the Royal Mile, so my Edinburgh experience was downright cushy. Except for his kitten, Plug, who if she didn’t get enough attention would launch herself at my leg and cling on to my tights with her claws until I picked her up and stroked her (I’m thinking of adopting this strategy myself in future). So I’ve come home scarred from this Edinburgh experience too, but luckily only literally.<br /><br />Walking through a torrential downpour to the Underbelly at midnight on my first night to appear in Sideshow, the Bloody Ringmaster’s late-night cabaret, I did wonder how much fun this was actually going to be, especially when I saw the water pouring through the brickwork into the building making the venue look like nothing so much as a medieval torture chamber. There were a couple of guys busking on the street under an archway on Cowgate with a double bass and a guitar. When I came out of the Underbelly after the show, two and a half hours later, they were still there, just packing up their instruments. That’s what I call a stoic performance. My own performance that night was to four people, which meant that when I got one of them up on stage to play the kazoo I actually lost a quarter of my audience. But size isn’t everything and all four of them were delightfully friendly. It was lovely to hang out with Lambchop Magoo, Chrysalis, Margaret the Gimp and the Bloody Ringmaster too – in fact the whole thing was rather cosy, despite the water running down the walls. The Bloody Ringmaster sniffed out the fact that one of our four audience members was in fact a reviewer – thanks to his built in reviewer-dar – so we all fell upon the poor guy oozing charm.<br /><br />The next day I had planned to see the Bloody Ringmaster in his other play, in which he skipped across the stage in a nightie while someone played the mandolin, but I overslept and missed it. Then I decided to stay in bed and read a book called ‘The Secret Countess’ all day because the rain wasn’t showing any signs of abating, and I needed to know whether the beautiful but penniless Russian aristocrat of the title was going to end up with the young English lord more than I needed to find out what was going on outside in the rain. <br /><br />That night my lovely Royal Mile Boy and his friend came to the show too, providing us with a third of our audience, which had now swelled to six. Royal Mile Boy volunteered to be my stooge and came up on stage to play the kazoo, but unlike every other audience member I’ve ever picked on before, completely failed to figure out how to get it to work – this must be some sort of Sods Law of Best Mates. To make things even more eggy, a pianist colleague who was in the audience strode onto the stage to show him how to do it, and gave an impressive performance on the kazoo which had no comedy value whatsoever and provided no closure for the little story we were telling about how someone could miraculously master an instrument in just a few moments. So I had to wrench the kazoo from my rather miffed colleague’s grasp and return it to my friend, who I would not allow to leave the stage until he had mastered it. Thankfully he did, leaving all of us feeling rather drained by the experience, which had somehow metamorphosed from a cabaret show into a music lesson. <br /><br />Fortunately the reviewer who was in the audience, yet again sniffed out by the Bloody Ringmaster, was more excited about the prospect of getting a ukelele lesson off me at the end of the show. And by the time we had all been drinking for four more hours the whole thing was no more than a distant unpleasant memory. What’s more the rain had finally stopped, which suddenly made the prospect of staying out drinking more appealing, so much so that I succeeded in drinking till dawn, after making longsuffering Royal Mile Boy carry my gown and ukelele home for me while I careered off into the night in one of those rickshaws like you get in Soho, which in Edinburgh can actually climb steep hills with two girls in the back. I even managed to carry a full pint in a plastic glass for the whole journey without spilling a drop. That’s some impressive back-seat cycling skills, that is. Walking home at dawn along North Bridge my drinking partner and I encountered a charming local lady who was in extremely good voice as she serenaded us with her rendition of a traditional Scottish ballad. The next morning, unsurprisingly, I missed the Bloody Ringmaster’s play for a second time.<br /><br />Friday saw me staggering up the Royal Mile with a hangover, cunningly fending off the thousands of flyering performers by clutching flyers for our own show in my hand (I appreciate this was not actually the purpose of giving me the flyers, and apologise in retrospect to the Bloody Ringmaster). It was quite overwhelming. But we found an Italian restaurant to eat lunch in, and I started to feel ready for the Fringe again after a few carbs. And just at that moment who should sashay past our outdoor table on the Grassmarket but Miss Ophelia Bitz in a fetching sequinned beret. She very generously offered me and my friend two guestlist tickets to the Tiger Lillies’ Seven Deadly Sins in the Spiegeltent, which was a riproaring hour’s entertainment. <br /><br />When I congratulated Miss Bitz afterwards she revealed that from their point of view it had been a nightmare because somebody in the audience had stolen a prop. I had thought the whole baby-theft incident was part of the show, so cleverly had they covered it, which just goes to show how different a performance looks from the other side of the stage. Another unexpected discovery of Saturday was how great Edinburgh water is for washing your hair in. My bob came out all shiny and sleek. I take back all those negative remarks about Edinburgh and water – I love it after all. That night, my last on Sideshow, we had an impressive audience of ten, and my kazoo stooge was a gorgeous American boy who revealed after the show that he was actually playing the part of one of the Columbine murderers by day. So I unwittingly had a murderer on my kazoo for the night. We followed the show with another impressive night’s drinking til dawn. On Saturday I missed the Bloody Ringmaster’s play for the third time.<br /><br />Saturday night I moved onto my next show, And The Devil May Drag You Under in Musical Theatre @ George Square, and suddenly hit the big league. I arrived to discover a two-hundred-seater auditorium with proper wings, spotlights, the lot. If it weren’t for the warm and friendly welcome I got from the cast and the other guests I’d have been quaking in my boots. Apparently there were loads of reviewers in that night, and there was also a great deal of pressure not to overrun, because otherwise they’d be fined by the venue. Just as I was taking all this in and starting to put my white-face make-up on (to conceal the fact my face had actually gone white with nerves), the cast of the previous show tumbled off the stage and into the backstage room, and a loud female cockney voice was exclaiming about what a nightmare it had been when her radio mic failed and how stressful it had been singing unamplified. I looked up in recognition. That was the voice of Hayley Angel Wardle, one of the four lead actresses of the TV show I’d worked on a couple of years before – Totally Frank on Channel 4. And there she was, in a bright yellow dress and a lot of orange fake tan. I went over to say hello, in my white-face cabaret make-up, and an odd pair we made – a very Edinburgh Festival combination of incongruous costumes. She was in a musical called Departure Lounge about a bunch of lads on their way back from a holiday in Benidorm, and she was playing the femme fatale. I decided that the happy coincidence of winding up in the show right after hers was an auspicious sign. <br /><br />That didn’t stop me getting the flutters big time about having to step out into the spotlight with nothing but my small pink ukelele and attempt to dazzle a crowded auditorium. The anticipation built up as I waited in the wings with the other performers, hearing but not seeing all the other acts perform their turns. It’s very weird listening to cabaret acts but not being able to see them, it’s a real tease trying to guess what it is the audience are laughing at and what exactly the performer is getting up to out there. I loved Sxip Shirey’s bizarre music, even though I couldn’t see what strange implements he was making his sounds on, and I really enjoyed Greg Walloch’s stand-up routine, but was almost unable to resist the temptation to have a peek and see what Lizzie Wort, Pustra and Vile’een and Scottee were up to, because I could tell there were riotous things going on just the other side of the curtains. My own turn was rather tame by comparison – more whimsical than outrageous really. I recreated a childhood fantasy diva moment by performing Don’t Cry For Me Argentina with my ukelele standing in for the orchestra, the audience standing in for the massed choirs, and a back to front chair for the balcony. The zeal – and the tunefulness – with which the audience joined in led me to suspect that there were more than a couple of performers in the auditorium.<br /><br />That night I joined the show’s cast for a drink and a dance in the Spiegel Tent but managed to get home by the relatively restrained hour of 3.30am, because the next day I had to get up to go to church.<br /><br />Yes, I really do mean church. Not a deconsecrated church being used as a Fringe venue. An actual church. My lovely Royal Mile Boy was singing a Haydn mass with his church choir, and had a solo part to perform, so I went along to watch him doing his stuff in cassock and surplice. Because it was a proper mass the choir were tucked away in a corner behind the orchestra, all but out of sight, so I had to sit in a bit of an odd spot to be able to watch him, which meant I missed the ‘real’ show, namely all the synchronised genuflections performed so balletically by the ministers. I must confess I found it all but impossible to sit through the service without unconsciously thinking of it as another piece of theatre, so immersed in the world of festival let’s pretend was I by this time. As such, I must say it stood up rather well, and could probably wipe the floor with some of the other shows on the Fringe. It did secretly amuse me to think that I would be in church in the morning and in Hell with the Devil that same night. But then that’s the Edinburgh Festival for you. <br /><br />Royal Mile Boy joined me in the Devil’s lair for the show that night, fresh from his mass, and added his dulcet tones to the chorus of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina. Later on, this being the nature of the festival, he and I ended up out for a drink with the Devil himself, of course. But sadly we were unable to source a chip shop for him where he could satisfy his late night urge for a bag of chips at 4am. Apparently “he who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon” so it’s probably just as well the chip shops were all shut, because I have no idea how you’re supposed to eat chips with a long spoon, or indeed a spoon of any description.<br /><br />Disappointingly I had to go home the next day, but so smitten was I by my Edinburgh adventures that I was sorely tempted to come back for more the next weekend. In the end I decided to wait until next year, when Royal Mile Boy’s kitten will, hopefully, have got old enough to be a bit more low-key about her demands for attention, and won’t send me home covered in scratches.<br /><br />I was also sorely tempted to bottle some of that Edinburgh water to bring back to wash my hair in, but in the end I realised that since I was already carrying one duffel bag, one hat box, one ukelele case, one rucksack and two gown bags, I wouldn’t realistically be able to manage a demijohn of water as well. Luckily it was raining as I walked to the station, so my hair got one last free wash anyway.<br /><br />xxxAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-74492937274654133872008-07-12T12:19:00.001+01:002008-07-12T12:19:35.923+01:00Music TherapyI watched a BBC documentary a few weeks back about the therapeutic powers of music – apart from the fact it had Alan Yentob fronting it, it was a great bit of TV. A guy with acute Tourette’s syndrome controlled it by drumming, another guy with acute autism played piano like a god. There were brain scans of Alan Yentob while he listened to his favourite piece of music, showing his brain flooded with blood. Another guy who’d been struck by lightning and suddenly become obsessed with music played piano at a classical recital (although the ‘healing’ side of the deal fell down a bit in his case, since his obsession with music had resulted in the breakdown of his marriage. Or perhaps his marriage needed to break down to make his life better in the long term. Who knows.) Some attempts were made to analyse the power of music in scientific terms, but beyond demonstrating that it did have power, the show didn’t really penetrate the mystery very far.<br /><br />I’ve been experiencing the healing power of music myself in the last few weeks, after life took a lurch towards the unexpected, and heaped a sudden cold dollop of misfortune upon my head, which I’m not going to moan about here. Instead I want to tell you about how being a musician has made it easier to cope with. When you’re going through a rough patch your friends try to offer up strategies that will make you feel better: get drunk, chainsmoke, gorge on chocolate, etc. I have actually, perversely, completely given up smoking (at last), find myself barely able to down more than a single glass of wine, and can’t summon up any enthusiasm for chocolate, which tastes like dust and ashes in my mouth. But what my musician and cabaret friends have done for me is book me in for loads of extra gigs, and this is the thing that really has done the trick. Maybe it’s because singing and playing takes you outside of yourself. Maybe it’s because it’s a visceral, not a cerebral, experience, playing music, so it quietens the chatter of your brain. Maybe music is a sort of meditation – but a collective rather than a solitary meditation. You tune in to the other people in the band and you get into a groove with them, then just let it carry you along; like floating down a stream. Or maybe it’s got more to do with the audience – being listened to, being appreciated, being loved for what you’re doing. Even though it’s not really you they’re into but the thing you’re projecting – the fantasy you’re creating for them. Or maybe getting dolled up in the false eyelashes, the red lipstick and the heels is like donning armour, and I feel safer inside there.<br /><br />I know I’m not the only one who has this experience of stepping on stage and putting life’s shit on hold for the duration of the performance. In fact, the more shit my bandmates are going through, the more incredible the performances they pull out of the hat. Witness Miss Honey Mink, prostrated by cold and flu and so poorly she can hardly walk, flounce onstage and scintillate for 20 minutes without having to blow her nose once. Sir Fitzroy Callow holds a throat infection in abeyance to bathe us in the honeyed tones of his trombone with a performance of greater subtlety, sensitivity and wit than ever. Bobby Fresh arrives at the gig crackling with stress after a day of living hell at the office only to bounce and skip his way across the drumkit with that mischievous lightness of touch that is all his own. And Connie Vanderlay – she’s the most astonishing of them all. There was a time, a few years ago, when life had floored her completely, and a few moments before we were due onstage she was in pieces – then she stepped onto the stage, sat down at the keyboard and played the most transporting and life-affirmingly bright piano part I had ever heard. At the time I felt guilty for asking her to gig on through a life crisis, but now I’ve been on the other side of it, I think my policy when any musician friend is going through a rough patch will be to drag them onstage as often as possible. And even if they’re not a musician, I’m going to give them a ukelele – or even a kazoo – and make them play it until they feel better.<br /><br /><br />xxxAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-50308066893423000292008-06-07T09:39:00.004+01:002008-06-07T09:43:31.464+01:00Countdown to the big gigWe’re playing at White Mischief at the Scala tonight. TONIGHT! After months of build-up, the big night is almost upon us. This is probably the coolest, most big-league gig the band has ever had. <br /><br />Here are some of the preparations we’ve been making:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Inter-band emails</span><br />Nothing can ever be arranged or confirmed without the full Slinktet checking their diaries and cross referencing the dates everybody can do. This involved mind-numbingly tedious ‘reply-all’ emails, which make your brain dribble out of your ear. What’s more, since I’m the self-appointed manager I’m the one that inflicts this torture on my band-mates, then has to sift through the replies and work out what dates we can play and what dates we can rehearse. This process can go on for several weeks. If I send an email saying ‘I still need dates from X’, X will quite often email me back indignantly pointing out that they replied to that email 2 weeks ago. Oh joy.<br /><br />This week’s inter-band emails have been all about the set list. We’ve got a half hour slot and we’re not allowed to over-run, so that means 7 songs and me restraining myself and not spending ten minutes in between songs discussing my wardrobe, love life or both. We’ve got a repertoire of at least 25. It would seem that all band members have passionately held views about which are our best songs, and they’re all different. There is going to be at least one song in the set tomorrow that one or more band member doesn’t like. No, of course I’m not going to tell you which one.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rehearsing</span><br />Last night was spent the Cellar of Joy under Earl Mysterio’s batchelor pad in Bethnal Green for our final run-through. Miss Connie Vanderlay joined us straight from the airport, as she’d just flown back from Copenhagen. Trousers and I picked up Kitty Bang Bang en route, who is going to be making a surprise cameo in one of our numbers. We tried to clear a bit of floor space down there amongst the amps, leads and empty biscuit packets for her to practice her routine in – but in the end she just sat on the drum stool and waved her arms in time to the music. Very sensibly, considering the state of the floor. I would strongly advise anyone against doing the splits in there. Most of us band members have mysterious white marks on our clothes from where we’ve brushed against the cellar walls at various times; I’d have hated Miss Bang Bang to leave with a white gusset. She might have found herself in an embarrassing social situation later in the evening.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Press</span><br />White Mischief is the only gig I’ve ever done proper grown-up Press for. It was very exciting: I got interviewed for a weekly what’s on e-bulletin called London Le Cool. They asked me two whole questions. I also got photographed for it, sitting on a gravestone in Abney Park cemetery, in full gown and feather fascinator, strumming my pink ukelele. This necessitated me strolling through the streets of Stoke Newington at four in the afternoon in a full length turquoise fringed showgirl gown and feathers, false eyelashes and red lipstick. Not one Yummy Mummy turned a hair at the sight, although I did get a few smirks from the schoolkids on their way home.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Preparation Rituals</span><br />We all have our own ways of psyching ourselves up. Trousers likes to dwell on all the things that are going to be a hassle, such as the nightmare parking situation in Kings Cross, and all the factors that might make the gig go badly, such as the fact Honey Mink can’t be with us tomorrow to share vocal duties (she’s in Spain being an Aunty). That way, when the gig goes well in spite of these many factors, he can be pleasantly surprised. Other members of the band, I have no doubt, spend the time rehearsing diligently. As for me, before an important singing engagement I generally have an irresistible urge to smoke. Is this some sort of self-destruct mechanism kicking in? Quite possibly. I have given in to the urge several times over the last couple of weeks, and even went as far as buying a packet of Vogue Menthol a few days ago. Luckily I left them behind at my friend’s flat. I know he will have smoked them before I go round there again, which is good news for my vocal chords. The other thing I tend to do is spend the whole run up to the gig obsessing about what I’m going to wear. Which brings me onto the Big Story of this blog entry:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The New Gown</span><br />The Tricity Vogue concept is 50% about the music, and 50% about Dressing Up. When I found out Honey wasn’t going to be able to join me for White Mischief, I decided that to make up for the absence of my sexy partner in crime, I was going to need a gown that had a personality all of its own. This may have been no more than a rationalisation of a primal urge to get a new dress made. My friend “Hollywood” has made two gowns for me before, but the last was two years ago, so I thought it was time I gave everybody something different to look at while I was on stage. How selfless of me… I had an idea that I wanted a dress that looked like flock wallpaper, so Hollywood and I hunted down a curtain factory outlet in North Finchley. There was a coach party of little old ladies there, debating which chintz to get to make a throw for the spare room. Meanwhile, Hollywood was running around like a 6 foot black gay Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen having raptures over brocades and Toile de Jouy, exclaiming at the possibilities for a frock coat here and a leather-trimmed slouch bag there. The staff were initially somewhat wary, warning us that we had to buy a minimum of two metres of any fabric. “I don’t think you understand, we are making a GOWN,” spat Hollywood. When he whipped out his sketchbook and started sketching me pictures of what the gown was going to look like, they suddenly sat up and took notice.<br /><br />There were some suitably opulent brocades, but many of the colour schemes were too muted for stage wear – then Hollywood had an inspiration – we should make it in black and white. We looked at a huge floral design, and Hollywood worried that it looked too much like a curtain? Then we decided that we would make a feature out of the fact Tricity had made her dress out of a curtain – we came up with a whole story together about how she (that is, Tricity the fictional character, rather than me in real life) had been caught in flagrante in a five star hotel room in the midst of a dangerous liaison, and had had to cover her modesty and take flight in a hurry – so she’d taken one of the curtains with her. With no time to collect her gown before her gig that night, she’d got her friend (Hollywood) to run up a dress for her out of the curtain she’d done a runner in. I suppose it’s an adult spin on the Sound of Music curtain play-clothes idea.<br /><br />First came the taking of measurements (during which Hollywood remained tactfully neutral about the size of my hips), then it was time to buy the fabric. Hollywood ordered me to buy an extra two metres of the curtain fabric we’d chosen, because he had an Idea for a skirt that would be “beyond genius” and would need a LOT of fabric. Then we drove over to Goldhawk Road to buy red and ivory satin for the lining, and Hollywood also blew £100 on various brocades, chiffons and silks that he found himself unable to leave the shop without; I’ve never seen anyone suffering from Fabric Addiction before; he get so genuinely excited by cloth that he can barely restrain himself from jumping up and down and shouting orgasmically. I got lost driving home and accidentally strayed into the congestion zone, which cost me £60, contributing further to this being the most expensive outfit I’ve ever bought.<br /><br />Then came the toile fitting – the bit where I get pinned into a plain cloth sheath with all the pleats on the outside, and Hollywood draws on it with pencil to mark where the bodice is going to be. Then the first fitting of the gown itself, where the plan came together before our eyes. We discovered that you could wear the back skirt attachment in dozens of different ways – as a shawl, as a coat, as a matador’s cape. Hollywood confessed that he was so excited about this gown he’d stood his tailor’s dummy up on a chair in the window, so people could see it when they walked past his flat. By the second fitting the bodice fitted perfectly and Hollywood pinned me into the whole thing then marched me out onto his front step so he could take photos. The ASBO youths across the road shouted cheeky remarks such as: “It’s Amy Winehouse… Gone Wrong!” Hollywood was dismissive: “Do you see me paying them mind? Pay them no mind, they don’t know genius when it’s before their eyes.” Holloway has never before witnessed such glamour.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOjZ3xlKvfJ4QZ6wE9FpKdTE1nLEM3gqH6oUEZ7sUAK91zysTqbIcqUHkr1C5tHxU4ZW2pAdme0TydziKctQtHhAk9lDalFHaNwV65IK6jMrGBRmmdkMmjcV79vl_8QcEUg/s1600-h/Image031.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAOjZ3xlKvfJ4QZ6wE9FpKdTE1nLEM3gqH6oUEZ7sUAK91zysTqbIcqUHkr1C5tHxU4ZW2pAdme0TydziKctQtHhAk9lDalFHaNwV65IK6jMrGBRmmdkMmjcV79vl_8QcEUg/s320/Image031.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209056903301233330" border="0" /></a><br />Yesterday morning the postman delivered the bespoke fascinator that I’d ordered from Caroline Mitchell Millinery – in an enormous box extravagantly packed with tissue paper and bubble wrap. A pair of black suede shoes have been acquired on sale in a Covent Garden shoe shop. And the final piece of the puzzle fell into place at the jewellery stall in Kingsland shopping centre yesterday – one giant pearl necklace, in exactly the same shade of ivory as the gown. Glamour triumphs, even in Dalston.<br /><br />Now it’s 9am and I’m writing this because I woke up far too early and couldn’t get back to sleep – but now I have to go, because Hollywood is already awake too, and has summoned me for final fitting, pressing and collection this morning.<br /><br />The gown will be making its debut at 10.30pm tonight on White Mischief’s second stage upstairs. I believe it is no more fabulous a visual aid than our music deserves. Come and have a look at the loveliest thing I have ever owned. And stay for the cheeky jazz.<br /><br />xxx<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rS8lN3R2FuIptpgELniSakLwmlKAU86E9SNkFDzVr8zggEyhpq7t7uagTZvZCdEX9rnK9py7_4fruzI8ime2dPHSNWWRAWC2hfpoJn4KeBYx-jhyH70aR6LVUXmaXUtIMw/s1600-h/Image033.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5rS8lN3R2FuIptpgELniSakLwmlKAU86E9SNkFDzVr8zggEyhpq7t7uagTZvZCdEX9rnK9py7_4fruzI8ime2dPHSNWWRAWC2hfpoJn4KeBYx-jhyH70aR6LVUXmaXUtIMw/s320/Image033.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5209057070984140802" border="0" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34331805.post-49267427300170964052008-05-29T13:07:00.001+01:002008-05-29T13:07:25.715+01:00Tricity Vogue Eats Humble Pie in the Volupte Dressing RoomsWell shame on me for bitching about the Volupte dressing room, because what did I find when I turned up there last night to play at Burlesque'n'Blues? A whole barrage of mirrors twinkling at me from every wall. Not only that but all the worktops were cleared, so that for the first time ever in my experience, 5 girls could all put their make up on at once without any human origami at all.<br /><br />I ran out of the dressing room shrieking "Mirrors! Mirrors!" like a 6 year old who'd just opened her birthday presents (funnily enough people do buy me mirrors as presents - I wonder why that is?) Owner Miss Kuki LaBelle explained they'd put loads of extras up for Volupte's 2nd birthday party, when pretty much every performer ever to grace the Volupte stage rocked up to do a turn. So there I was, dissing the place when it was already refurbished.<br /><br />Miss LaBelle graciously accepted my appreciation of the new mirrors with not a word about my blog entry, diplomat that she is, but when I went back upstairs to sound check, I ran straight into her partner in crime, owner Delories Von Cotier:<br /><br />"Oy, Vogue, what's this about you dissing our dressing rooms on the internet, you cheeky madam?"<br /><br />Pete Saunders, pianist and emeritus professor of the Performers' School of Tact And Diplomacy, immediately jumped in with:<br /><br />"All the best venues have the worst dressing rooms, it's a well known fact."<br />Apparently if you play at Carnegie Hall they make you get changed outside in the back alley next to the bins.<br /><br />That's probably where the Misses LaBelle and Von Cotier are going to make me change tonight when I turn up to play Club d'Amour...<br /><br />Unless they read this blog today and discover that I have honoured Volupte's dressing rooms with a specially created new award:<br /><br />"The most maligned dressing room award."<br /><br />xxxAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17359066998982363459noreply@blogger.com0