© Joe Cornes Madame Galina Welog Madame Galina reviews

Nicky Ness, tour manager, and Director of Entertainment at C.S.E., Combined Services Entertainment, is very excited about the trip. I meet Paul Tonkinson, Gina Yashere, Andy Askins and Rhod Gilbert. “Still can’t believe I managed to get exactly you five for this week”, says Nicky, handing out helmets and body armour. Am bothered that the metal thing only covers the heart and that my right lung , which I need for singing, is unprotected. We wait around. The other comics discuss their circuit, big managements and the gadgets they pick up on ex-pat corporate tours to the Far East. When they ask, I say I’m touring theatres on my own, that I got dropped by my management because I book my own tours, and I don’t even own an I-Pod.

On the bus to the airfield, Nicky asks me if I use false eyelashes. I say that my own lashes are so long all I do is put a bit of volumising mascara on them. A paratrooper turns to give me a bit of a Paddington Bear. Nicky reminds me that on this tour I’m either going to be the “wow”- or the “what the f**k?” factor; and has to keep telling me that the plane we’re going on is called a Tristar, not a Trident. Whatever it is, I sleep on it and wake up to find a soldier in front of me playing a blood-curdling video game. But then, I suppose I watch a lot of ballet in my spare time. When we get over Iraqi airspace, we’re told to put our body armour and helmets on and the lights in the plane go out. Eerie. After landing, we go to a holding bay, and I wonder if this is what evacuation was like. An army man warns us about a trip hazard, and I think he means a wire detonator and stop walking. Ian sees that I’ve gone pale and explains that the trip hazard is actually the iron door frame at the entrance to the hangar.

On the base, our accommodation is bunk beds in a prefab, with sleeping bag roll. We’re given a bag of stuff to eat: sausage rolls, yoghurt and apples, and given the bad news that we’re in a dry camp. Nicky, bless her, says she’ll take us to the Pizza Hut on base. I think she’s joking. We get driven there. She isn’t. There’s also a Subway, in a little prefab but otherwise with the same fittings and food as the ones back home.

“Is there a Dorothy Perkins, Miss?” I ask.

We get briefed about security. Nothing much to worry about, apparently, as the insurgents are cack-handed at mortar attacks. It’s weird seeing the moon.

“The same moon”, Paul points out.

Day Two

In the daylight I can see that the base looks like the never-going-anywhere-let-alone-up bits of Sheffield. I say I’m going in my new striped dressing gown and scarlet flip flops to raise morale on the way to the shower block. But I find I haven’t brought a towel, and Paul needs some stuff, so he and I go with Michelle, our armed escort, to the NAAFI. There’s no pornography in the magazine section, I point out. Paul explains that nothing immoral is allowed in a Moslem country. Oh. Back at the shower block, a sign says to abide by ship’s shower rules. Thirty seconds to get wet, switch off, thirty seconds to rinse. Otherwise we’ll all be showering from a bottle of mineral water. I religiously stand there going “a thousand and one, a thousand and two, a thousand and three…”

I’m too late for breakfast “scoff”, which isn’t an ironic take on Escoffier, apparently, but one of our guards has another of the bags of sausage rolls, yoghurt and apples. Nicky asks if I’d like some chocolate. I would. We get taken to the air field and onto a helicopter, that the pilot flys straight at the ground when we’re nearly at Camp Smitty to amuse/terrify/nauseate us civilians. This is it. We check the venue, and I get a bit of gen on the officers I should embarrass, and then it’s the count down. I get changed listening to the other acts go down brilliantly, terrified, do my usual Maria Fay ballet barre, which calms me in a theatre, but doesn’t out here because it’s all so uberstrange – then I’m on. The room is packed with 2para and the Australian army. They stare at me. I stare at them. Even this nervous, I’m still registering that a lot of them are as fit as. I get Colonel Chiswell to take off my flack jacket and end up tipped into his lap, and we’re off. There are big laughs all the way through; they roar when I con three monitors into participating, gasp at the fouettes, and cheer the Pas De Deux. It’s a storm and I almost cry with relief. Nicky Ness is beaming at all of us. It’s the first time such a small scale show has gone out in the whole of the sixty years of forces entertainment, and they’ve had nothing remotely like Madame Galina before. Ian has managed to smuggle in some vermouth, which we pour into coke cans for the after show party round Tonk’s bunk bed.

Day Three

We’re in Al Amara. Last night we slept in a big tent, next to roaring generators. I asked the RSM if there was a place where the noise of the generators wasn’t so loud, and he asked if I would like a f**king ensuite while we were at it. This is a warry place, and they’re happy to see civilians. The stage has been made out of orange crates with cardboard boxes gaffa’d to them. It’s one of the springiest stages I’ve ever been on, the only drawback that the cardboard goes round the metal in a frill and I keep going to far right and slipping off the side. I ask Paul and Rhod about efficiency. I need to get myself neatly to the audience participation stuff. Rhod thinks the register bit goes on too long, while Paul thinks it builds a relationship and should be left as is. Rhod does point out that nothing can ever be in the passive tense. Every insult must be specific to one person and delivered directly to them. I’m going to have the best fun with that.

Nicky comes to tell me that the colonel here heard about what happened to Colonel Chiswell last night and sends a message that he’s not playing, and won’t come to the show to be embarrassed. Boo! I audition for a stooge from among the ranks this time. I’m tipped off about Reggie, a Highlander. He’s a gem. Nineteen, from Aberdeen. He fancies himself, but in the nicest way. He has three superman poses for his role, all off his own bat, and does The Highland Fling in place of the Pas De Chats, which makes me laugh. When as Nikya I die from the snake bite, he does full on distraught acting, kneeling at my side in tears. Nicky says all she can see at this point is my tutu shaking. When we get to the Pas De Deux, he leaps onstage and smacks his head on a light. I am laughing too much to dance by now, and his fellow Highlanders love seeing this. He comes backstage to thank us all afterward, saying that they never get anything that far out. He says he means this in both senses. He is a legend around the camp the next day.

While we’re waiting for the jeep back to the airfield, a bomb disposal robot trundles along the road to us with a bit of paper in its dalek thing sticking out of the front. It’s a thank you note from the squaddies.

Day Four

After we’re packed ready for the off again, Nicky asks me what our main guard, Lieutenant Nelson, has been calling me. I tell her.

“He’s a huge, morose Aussie killing machine”, she says, “and he calls you Treacle?”.

“But I call him Matthew, which he didn’t like at first. He said to call him Matt, but I said I don’t shorten people’s names, and he said that was fine”.

Later in the day, Ian calls him Matthew.

“Listen. Only my mother and Treacle call me Matthew”.

My left ballet shoe falls apart at Basra Palace, and someone gets me a needle from the medical centre in return for a visit when I’ve come off-stage. A private stops to take the needle and shoe off me, saying I’m making a mess of it. He does a beautiful job, even burning the end of the cotton with his Zippo lighter. He shows me all his badges, sewn on perfectly, with great pride, and tells me that he has no family back home, no girlfriend, no prospects – the army is it.

“At least it’s a job”, he says in broad Lancashire “and I could get somewhere with it”.

I have to pretend to dig my mascara pencil into my eye to cover welling up. After my spot, I go and do my visit to the medical centre. I’m thinking fevered brows to be mopped, I’m thinking “Mother” Ernestine Schumann-Heink performing every Christmas Eve for the boys overseas, I’m thinking O.B.E. There’s one chap there, in quarantine for diarrhoea and vomiting. I’m not allowed to get closer to him than the doorway to his room.

Day Five

We’re being looked after now by Sergeant Major “Tina” Turner. Dickens could have written him. Seven feet tall, face made of the Pennines. He accuses us of having bed areas like gypsy encampments and milk bottle legs that would be a disgrace even to Pontins. Coming out of Basra Palace, I’m sure we’re on the helipad bit and suggest we walk round the side. Tina is already across and screams back that we’d best get off there if we don’t want to be wearing the ****ing helicopter. I shout back “I told them you wouldn’t want them to walk on that bit, miss”. Silence. Thankfully, we can see his shoulders shaking in the dark. He’s known as Miss from then on. Back in Lieutenant Nelson’s private bar (ssh!) miss tells me I was side-splittingly funny onstage tonight – I fell over twice and got tangled up in the mike lead - and he’d like to sing me a song. He has a fantastic bass-baritone, and sings Two Little Boys.

Pressing my advantage, I say that while the helicopter and jet rides have been amazing, could he arrange for us to do something no civilian would normally do?

“How about”, he booms, “I stick you in a warrior tank and drive you through the walls of Basra ****ing Palace? No civilian would ever have done that!”.

Day Six

In the morning, we’re called early because miss has arranged for us to have a ride in a tank - though not through the walls of Basra Palace.

There’s a New Yorker out front tonight, who joins in er… more than anyone, and tries to choose my stooges for me without being asked. We’ve been told to stay off politics, but I can’t resist.

“Listen to me, Bronx Boy, how about you shut up? It’s your fault we’re all here in the first place!”

Uproar. Hoorah!

Someone he hadn’t pointed out for the audition was a Royal Marine called Taps. I find out afterward that there was some tension about the Commandos being there as they’d travelled over from another base. When I get Taps onstage, I feel the tension. Our body guard tells me afterward he thought he might be needed. But I ask Taps if his muscles are for use, or just for gay show, and we’re fine. I just wish he won’t look at me in that fish-eye way. He wins the Pas De Deux competition fair and square, though. The Commandos’ suggestions for moves in the Pas De Deux are all unusable and unprintable, and I come back to life quicker than normal when I realise Taps is about to start CPR. He still manages to get four snogs in, though. I’m not going to argue with him. Nicky says she can see his shoulder caps through his uniform from the back row. The Commandos take me outside for a group photo on a tank, and make more unprintable suggestions, but Nicky very firmly says I’m not going to the bar with them. Boo.

Day Seven

Ten shows down, one to go, and we’re actually sad to leave. Our last show is back at Basra in the NAAFI. It’s a great show to end on. Everyone’s on form, and my stooge is comic genius. We’re exchanging hugs and e-mails as our stage is dismantled and armchairs put back in front of the plasma screen TV in time for the big football match. Squaddies are arriving with over an hour to spare to get a good view. When we’re packed and hanging around, we hear that the plane from England has taken off four hours late. Then we hear that some people won’t be able to get on it, and squaddies going on r. and r. will have precedence. Nicky and Michelle go down to the airfield and ask if we can please get on the plane. A very nice man in handling says yes. The plane leaves four hours late, and goes via Hanover, Birmingham and Scotland. It takes twenty-three hours to get home. At Birmingham at four in the afternoon we hear that a plane had taken off from Basra in the morning, that we could have been on, that arrived in England at midday.

When I finally get home, I tread Iraq mud all over my carpet and can’t bear to hoover it up for three days.