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November 07, 2006
Treating the two imposters both the same. As blog fodder.
I did a charity corporate in Edinburgh last week. It was for a truly worthy cause involving children somewhere humid overseas, so I waived my fee.
The organizer was Mrs. Jellaby.
I won an award once for climbing up here in my dress suit shoes. Thank you.
The star guest was Heather Small. Hoorah! When I was in the throes of giving up my full-time teaching job and moving to Aldeburgh with no real reason for doing either of those things and starting to panic, I switched on the TV in the middle of Top of the Pops and caught Heather performing her single Search for the Hero inside Yourself. That’s why I’m doing this, I decided.
Carol, my teacher’s pet singer at Guildford, took me to the Star for a drink to ask “but why are you leaving? What about my chest and head voice mix?” and before I could answer, smiled and sang “Search for the hero inside yourself.”
In Ipswich, with my money fast running out and no work coming in I really started to panic and made myself go into the Buttermarket where there were people. Search for the Hero inside Yourself was the muzac being piped at the very moment I walked in.
So, I was thrilled to be working with Heather. And that was the end of the joy.
For Scotland Today ITV Galina did a stint as a tour guide and referred to this as barnacled Thunderbird 3. Thank you.
I walked a good twenty minutes up the mound from the station to my hotel. Put my nightshirt on the pillow, ate the complementary shortbread, turned the loo roll to run the other way. From there I walked a further half an hour to the venue. I would have walked anyway to warm up my legs and feet, but the offer of a lift would have been nice.
Mrs. Jellaby greeted me with,
“Can you just come and sit over here for a minute, please?”
Not “cup of tea?” or “a look at the dressing room?” or “an airing for your tutu?”…
She went on,
"Now, I don't know what you do or anything..."
But from the way she pitched the evening to me back in June, you’d have thought that armageddic amounts of fiery lava would wend its way through Old Town once again if I didn't grace her evening with what comedian Kevin McCarthy calls my tiddle tiddle thud in three dozen doilies sewn together…
"And I have to say I just read something that makes me think you might be a bit inappropriate for the evening."
I wanted to quote Confucius/Buddha/Thumper’s Mother or whoever it is at her: "If you don't know, don't condemn."
But from then on I ceased to exist anyway because Heather Small was either on the phone, on her way, or on stage and Mrs. Jellaby hardly came near me.
My beloved Jenners. Got a new bag for my tutu... Thank you.
I did my sound check, set my props, asked for the sandwiches and water I'd been promised (nothing doing) and was shown upstairs to a bar “this’ll have to do for your dressing room” to wait four hours till I went on.
I had to get out of the way of waiters herding about with non-Vegan starters while I was trying to shimmy into my nad tuck-away pants. The “compere” checked in with me. He was one of those over-styled people who are absent in the way that Grinny the alien granny in Nicholas Fisk’s book is absent. Mrs. Jellaby came up and they had a discussion about the birthday boy. Some twelve year old whose father is CO of Prontaprint. Which is why the kid had won some competition or other and was being treated to a cake during dinner.
One of the waiters told me that there would also be a little girl there whose birthday it was...
I got onstage after a terrible introduction and had to call six times to the techy to put my music on. While I was dancing my opening number, I noticed that not all of my props were on the table. The scarf, water, salt and bread were gone. Ballonees. I sent a waitress for replacements, and when it came to the Scarf Pas De Deux I had to use "this old piece of tat" – actually the most gorgeous and expensive embroidered pashmina - off the back of the richest woman in the room. She said I was wonderful, so it was okay.
Mrs. Jellaby, the compere and how many bloody more? other people walked to and fro across the room for whispered discussions with one another all during my set, and while I was mid set-up for the Pas De Deux with Martin Hannan, Scotland On Sunday Sports reporter, Mrs. Jellaby brought Heather's entourage in right through the middle of the room to sit at the front table with her. That was it. I got off the stage.
"I hear we have another birthday in the room?” I called out. “Rhiannon, where are you?"
I went over to her. She was on beautiful, beautiful Peter’s table. I had just discarded him from the Pas De Deux competition, because had he won it would have been for the sex- rather than comic-potential. And Nicky Ness aka “miss!” at Combined Services Entertainment doesn't like it when I do that...
"No-one else gave a shit about your birthday here tonight”, I told Rhiannon, “yet they all knew. And you didn’t win a competition. And why not? Because your father isn't CO of Prontaprint and didn’t do all the flyers and photos for tonight for free..."
Round the room they were either doubled up or gasping in horror.
When nobody, not Mrs. Jellaby, the compere, nobody, came to say cheers afterward, I left. I sent a loaded e-mail next day to Mrs. J. though, saying how sorry I was not to have stuck around, but when I perform as Galina I tend to leave quickly and with no fuss so as not to be seen as me, and to leave them with her, sort of thing, and I was sure I must have missed out on a thank me speech from the stage and presentation of flowers, champagne and/or other gift?...
“I wondered where you’d gone”, she wrote back. “Your champagne is in my fridge. You were amazingxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”.
Don’t care. Too rude.
Next day I stopped off in Durham to take my mate Rupert out to lunch.
Rupes is afraid to go in here alone after the dream he had about his own ascension. Thank you. But he needs to for his engineering course...
I’m nicking a lot the stuff that Rupert comes stream of consciousness out with for a sketch show. I got two napkins worth from him, so to speak, including:
“For someone, like, way older than me, I was surprised at how inexperienced she was in bed. She just, like, lay there. But then I think I heard somewhere that her last boyfriend was German? I’m not, like, saying that I’m, like, way experienced, but I watch porn. To be good in bed all you have to do is do what they do but with more emotion and respect.”
Rupes showing another skill.
After lunch, back on the train, a quick turn around in Camden and off again to a gig at the Swindon Arts Centre. Out front were lots of service people that had seen the stuff about me in Soldier Magazine. When I came on as Galina, there was so much applause I couldn’t hear the music. Sadly, re. the twin imposters to be treated the same, I let myself bask. Set off on the wrong foot for the Pas De Chat, tried to correct myself, got it more wrong, had to save myself from falling down.
Said an ex-airman afterward in the bar,
“For a good few seconds, with your legs going all over the place like that, it looked like Mr. Punch setting about the sausages.”
Not the way to do it.
GROOAAAN!
Quiet down, now!
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