Wednesday 8 August 2012

Burlesque Show On Tour

Goodness me - I am the most tired thing that ever was tired! But it has been worth it - I have had a fabulous long weekend with my Burlesque Show Family as we took over the beautiful town of St. Helier in Jersey for the latest stop on the tour!

Playing in the sandpit

The 'weekend' actually began on Wednesday as Taz and I drove to Lincoln to meet Elle Amour and begin an epic road-trip to Poole together (complete with the remaining two cabaret kittens, who were being very well behaved despite the massive detour on the way to their new home!)

 
Seen on the way to Poole - full rainbow, and Stonehenge!

After a lovely restful night in a guest house, Elle and I took ourselves off around Poole Harbour for the morning, and ended up exploring the museum to escape the rain!

 

 
 
 
Playing in Poole Museum

After a quick coffee, we met with some more cast members and checked in for our ferry to Jersey!


The captain announced that the crossing would be particularly choppy that day, and he was right! Despite taking copious amounts of anti-sickness pills, ginger chews and as much ginger beer as we could cope with, we all felt a little bit queasy and we were glad to finally reach land some four and a half hours later!

 
Seeing the ship off with Elle Amour, Kittie Klaw, Flixx Demontrant, Coco Malone and Fancy Chance

  
Last glimpses of England

Once we arrived at our hotel, we were all famished so left it to Fancy Chance to take us somewhere nice to eat, and she didn't disappoint. After a lovely meal we were all exhausted and a night-cap in the Jersey Grand hotel finished me off for the evening!

 
Casa Mia! With James, Coco, Kittie, Fancy, Elle and Elliot

The next morning we were up early, as Elle, Kittie, Coco, Flixx and I were heading out for a day of pimping and promotion!

All dolled up!

First stop was BBC Radio Jersey where we were being interviewed about the show, and I can honestly say I was terrified! Put me onstage in front of a thousand people if you must, but pop me in a studio with a microphone and one other person and I'll freeze!
It went well though, and if you can cope with me sounding like a posh twelve year old child, then you can listen to a clip of the show here

 
Interviews with the BBC Don'cha know!

After our interview, we went to the theatre and got our first look at the life-sized cutouts that had been advertising the show for the past couple of weeks!

 

 
I'm a cardboard cutout!!

We spent a fun couple of hours in the high street, dancing around, shouting and generally causing as much of a distraction as possible. It was worth it, as we got to pose with the Jersey rugby team, ate ice cream and found out that ticket sales had gone through the roof and we'd sold out both shows! 

Jersey Opera House

The theatre itself was beautiful, our tech team were incredibly helpful, and the audiences (both nights) were some of the best I've ever performed to! It was also the first time I came offstage after finishing an act and though "Yep, happy with that!" as I'm usually such a nit-picker over my performances.

Mirror Picture: with Coco Malone (eating my head, it seems!) Ilke and Elan (on their wedding anniversary weekend) Kittie Klaw, Elle Amour, Flixx Demontrant and Fancy Chance

Everyone in the cast was on form this weekend: Kiki Kaboom was hosting and she was in her element with such an enthusiastic audience. Fancy Chance performed her Alice act, which is one of my favourites (and she was impressed that the audience got all of her drug references! Hahaha) Flixx brought the house down with his Frog Prince act, as did Coco Malone with her incredibly sexy rendition of 'You Can Leave Your Hat On'  and Elle's new 'Summertime' act is one of the most mesmerising performances I've ever seen. Elan was on form, as always, Jim Devereaux got one of the biggest cheers of the night at the end of the first half, but Elliot Mason is my new hero after powering through illness to perform two brilliant sets!

I fling my stocking into the audience during 'Lust' and the gentleman who caught it asked me to autograph it after the show!

I'm so proud to be part of such an amazing cast!

Elle and I made the front page of the Jersey Evening Post!

The weather the next day was a little bit changeable - typical as it was our day off and we had planned to do lots of touristy things! However we did all meet for breakfast then I went with Kittie to nosy round the old castle as I love architecture and history, then, showing our ages, we all headed back to our hotel for afternoon naps before another fabulous show in the evening!


 
Breakfast with a view of the castle

It was another sell-out and we found out that audience members from the previous night had been calling to ask if they could get tickets again! 

Mirror Picture! With Coco, Flixx, Elle, Kiki, Kittie and Fancy

After the show, we were slightly mobbed by audience members in the bar, and the lady who had claimed the giant cardboard cutout of me asked us all if we would sign it for her! She cried!

Autographs!

And despite us all having to be up early to catch the ferry home, we stayed up celebrating two fabulous shows and toasting our success!

Full Cast 

The crossing back to England was much smoother, however we were informed that there were adverse tides meaning the journey took nearly two hours longer than scheduled! Fortunately there was sunshine and a nice breeze so we spent most of our time on deck enjoying the weather.

 
Beautiful sunshine leaving Jersey

Thank you everyone involved in 'The Burlesque Show' for such a wonderful weekend - lets do it again!




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