Madame Galina's Doings Diary

Woman's Hour

Oh, the bliss – I’ve just had lunch with Tonks (aka Paul Tonkinson. Iestyn, what have I told you about stream of consciousness?...ed) at the Corner House in Manchester. Hadn’t seen him since Iraq. It was a joyful reunion. He’s in Manchester presenting the flag ship Breakfast Show on XFM, and going great guns from what I hear on Broadband; though it has to be said: the stand up world and Combined Services Entertainment (alleluia…ed.) are missing him. Well, you would. And do you know I’ve finally realised what it is that gives him his hang-dog expression? His eyelashes curve downward. He very sweetly said, just before he pointed out the shred of mayo globbed onion I had on my nose, how chuffed he is that I’ve had such great CSE tours.

“I have to be honest, Iestyn, and tell you that when the rest of us heard what you did, we thought, that’s interesting, that’s going to die on its arse. And now look at you, the New Forces’ Sweetheart”.

“Miss (Oh, save us! Nicky Ness, Director Of Entertainment at CSE…ed) doesn’t sanction that term” I chided him. “So you can only say that I’m the NFS ironically…”

Whereas, Jenni Murray, presenter of Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, can say it any way she likes. Asthmatically, as it turned out…

To record the show I went to Manchester for the second time in a week. The first, when I hooked up with Tonks, had been for a performance of Anything For A Tenor and Madame Galina at the Lowry Quays Theatre. That had been a long time coming; Diana Quick first told the artistic director they should have me there back in 2002. But the Marschallin is a wise woman when she says “Jedes Ding Hat Seinen Zeit”, and the timing was just right. I could see my techy, James, who had backs so swayed there were more than four seconds between him standing still and his knees locking, thumping the sound desk with laughter; and I got a standing ovation. Punters, Galina’s so-called lesbian stalker among them, later stood at their tables when I walked into the bar. I went and sat with said L.S, and among other things we discussed the difficulties I was having writing publicity blurb that clearly conveyed the content of my show.

“I see what you mean”, she said. “I’ve seen you three times now, and I bought this lot with me tonight…”

A man that looked a lot like my Nan Silcox interrupted, “…and she still couldn’t tell us what to expect. “Just get in the car”, she said, and not so much as the offer of a sweet…”

I got to thinking about my Nan Silcox. “She at all times made an effort to do things properly, even when that was the hard or the slow way”, remembers my Aunt Sophia. Legendary in my family is the story of when she went round to Letty’s next door, looked through the kitchen cupboards, and found tea bags.

“Letty, there are tea bags in here”.

“Can’t be”.

“There are”.

“Can’t be”.

“There are, Letty”.

“You sure?”

“Clear as custard”.

“Where, exactly?”

“Cupboard above the draining board”.

“Never!”

“Aye. Behind the tinned evap”.

“Oh, those tea bags, you mean. The just for life-or-death emergency ones”.

“And what was the life-or death emergency, Let’, you’ve kept quiet, not like you at all, about?”

Let’ walked right into that one. “Haven’t been as yet”.

“Then why are these tea bags open?”

Letty thought quickly. “They came like that. Seconds down at Carrefours. Haven’t used any”.

Nan counted them while Letty sat feeling her blood pressure rise.

“There’s only seventy nine, yer. No number eighty”.

“Oh, now, “said Letty, “just for myself the once, it didn’t seem worth the effort to be in the kitchen, right, then have to come back in here to fetch the footstool, take it back out there, put it flush to the sink to climb on and chuck the old tea leaves out on the roses…”

“Well, there we are for a start. We’ll have Mark move the roses further down the garden so you can’t reach them just by chucking tea leaves out of the window and will have to make the effort to go down there by walking the seven brew-up times a day you do have. Doctor Clem did say you must have more exercise”.

“...and get out the caddy and find the strainer and set out the tray, just for the one person, me all alone, that there was”.

“Letty,” said Nan, with long-suffering tone, “what did I tell you about our Don getting distorted with depression and having to be sectioned?”

“You said the writing was on the wall the day he bought the potato peeler”.

“Yes, because that’s how it starts. Tea bags today, tomorrow a wetted sponge on your work table instead of your Green Shield Stamps being self-licked by tongue, then it’s out of your control and down Argos for a microwave. And the next thing we’ll have is me that do have your spare key thinking I haven’t seen you at bingo for a couple of Thursdays, or heard you singing O, Fy Iesi Bendegedig while you hang out your dishcloths, and I’ll come in here to look for you dead for a fortnight in that armchair stinking of cheesy wee cos you didn’t have a bath the day you died in case you had already had one and just forgot, the remains of a microwave Chicken Biriani in your lap, surrounded like Tutankhamun in his pyramid with stuff you sent off for from the Innovations Catalogue. Death by labour-saving device, Letty. Now, fetch me your nail scissors”.

And she oversaw Letty decanting the contents of the seventy-nine tea bags into her Souvenir Of Barry Island caddy.

“In which”, concludes Aunt Sophia, “there is a lesson for us all”.

Madame Galina has asked for some of her better reviews to be posted on the site. So, here goes…

“A rare and perfect synthesis of art and larkiness…waspish, retro-Noel Cowardish wit laced with Nancy Mitford…the audience howled with laughter, stamped and cheered”. The Times

“With aplomb in everything she does, the autocratic chubette serves up cunning double ententes and multiple pirouettes while chivvying the audience into hilarious onstage participation…More bolshy than Bolshoi!” The Herald

“A fond farewell to the amazing Madame Galina, who held us in thrall every night this week…eccentric and entertaining…More! More!” Chistopher Matthew, Daily Mail TV Critic

“Amazing…the body movements of Natalia Makarova, the body type of Johnny Vegas…Madame Galina is a unique and fabulous creation”. **** The Scotsman

“The stuff of comedy…played straight, superb fouettes and so funny!” Time Out.

There…now she’s happy. Otherwise, it’s just the hugely out of date, political, snide one from Trog – as if we don’t all know who you are!!! As the saying goes in Russia: There is always one who comes to spoil the celebrations by smelling of baby dear’s wee.

Doing Bayadere Commando

Hello again Ballet Lovers.

Do please come and see my double bill this June at the Guildhall Derby on the 8th, the Arts Centre Darlington on the 10th, the Norwich Playhouse on the 22nd, and the Y at Leicester on the 23rd. Otherwise it's private gigs; and brides' mothers tend to get het up when I sneak people under their tent flaps...

Also, I am a guest on Woman's Hour, Radio 4, 10am June 8th talking about the changing face of the Forces' Sweetheart, being the current one, and so on. Fingers crossed I get put in the sixty years of services entertainment exhibition at the Imperial War Museum this winter. Practise saying Dame Galina, just in case...

Martin Harvey in full Diaghilev mode advising... Photo Guy and Peter

I’m loving having the new production of Sleeping Beauty to play with. And all the very vocal people with photographic recall, who can tell you exactly how each colour, be it in frieze, frock or froufrou, differs from Messel’s original…

But I want to know how the courtiers come to be so au fait with fairies. I’m singing The Lord Has Wet or something at a christening in July, and I bet if suddenly through the Piper Window - I'm making this peculiar to proud parents Sophie and Richard as payback for not making me godparent of either sex - there flew the following:

The Fairy of the Turner’s Despised Water Feature That Sophie Wilfully Clogged Up With The Tampons.

The Fairy Of Foss Bromage’s Vegetable Patch Where Richard Got Caught Stoned Again Nicking Cuttings He Told PC Dellow Were Marijuana And It Was Really Like A Citizen’s Arrest Like.

The Fairy of the Eleven Laburnums Where Sophie’s Local Ex-Boyfriend Harvested Magic Mushrooms To Sell From His Ice Cream Van.

The Fairy Of Sophie Putting Sleeping Pills On The Bird Table To Prevent Another Dawn Chorus.

The Fairy of Richard’s Dad’s Homemade Wine With Happy Shopper Pot Pourri In The Nose, Battery Acid On The Tongue, After Taste Of Cheesy Wee.

The Short Term Memory Loss Fairy: Let This Be A Warning To You Richard: It Starts With Forgetting That You’ve Brought A Present To A Fairy-Tale Princess’s Christening.

- surely in church there would be reactions running the gamut from what the?! To Becky hyperventilating again? Yet from the courtiers onstage at Covent Garden there isn’t so much as mild surprise. And, please, what are the cavaliers? Are they a type of fairy? Are they human? And why and where do they go when Carabosse comes? As my aunt used to say: It wants thinking of…

But then, it’s the kind of thing I would think about. In excelsis. While I was teaching at the Guildford School of Acting, the Class Of ’93 presented me with the cod award Best Use Of The Method Acting System In A Totally Inappropriate Situation after I coached a potential Sound Of Music Maria:

“Your yodelling isn’t nearly specific enough. The Goatherd is lonely, you just sound poised. Beautifully poised, yes, but not lonely. That’s better. Real sense of isolation there. Why are you sounding posh now? Oh, okay. Can you not, please? Yes, I know it’s a Prince, but he’s just on the bridge as a bystander, he isn’t doing the yodelling, is he? No. Now our goatherd is directly addressing the one little girl in the pale pink coat, so can we have our yodelling ball-quiveringly randy sounding, please…”

I went to Afghanistan this month, like you do, for more CSE (Combined Services Entertainment) shows. Have a look at their site www.ssvc.com/cse for their take on it all. Just before I left, I did a gig at the Robertsbridge Dance Festival. Out front was the delicious Independent On Sunday ballet critic Jenny Gilbert. She lives with one of my old Guildhall professors. He had forgotten ever teaching me. The organiser sent me an e-mail afterward saying “Thank you. We do love a triumph!” which doesn’t definitely say that my performance had been one, does it? The next night, I gigged at West Tytherley. Out front was Virginia Wakelynn, who everyone will have seen as the White Cat in the film of Sleeping Beauty Act Three with Fonteyn and Blair in the leads.

“I was coached by Madame for that”, Virginia remembered. “And then Fred told me to go to the touring company as no-one was getting any roles at Covent Garden. I did all the stuff you needed the speed and the feet for”.

And she demonstrated, beautifully, bits of Coppelia and Fille, recounting corrections she had been given by Ashton himself. It was jaw on the floor stuff.

We left for Afghanistan a day late. We had been due to leave on Wednesday, but tour manager Angie Moore called to say that the RAF had bumped us off the flight and that we were now due to fly on Saturday. Good. I hadn’t bought ear plugs, malaria tablets or a hat yet. Angie later interrupted my one man Spider Solitaire tournament to say second change of plan we were going tomorrow. I flapped out onto the Camden Road in my espadrilles. First stop, my nice pharmacist to ask him about malaria tablets.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Afghanistan”.

“Oh my God. Be careful you don’t get beheaded”.

I bought Jungle Formula, Factor 50 for kids and Avloclor/Paludrine tablets, whose possible side-effects for some reason brought to mind The Marquis De Sade. In the what my mother used to call in-and-out-shop, I was so anxious to be home in case I got behind hand with my packing and ended up missing the bus, the train, my lift and the Tri-Star, I bought the first hat I saw. Checking it out in the mirror, I looked like Dolly Bantry of Miss Marple Body In The Library fame. Still, it might make the squaddies laugh. Needing a free hand for my wallet, I put it on at the till. The shop keeper laughed.

Next day, in departures at Brize Norton, I was in the midst of a potentially piranhic group of Para’s when an Engineer I met in Iraq came up and said he didn’t recognise me not wearing a dress. One of the Para's asked if I was with the entertainments people.

“I am, yes”.

“Any girls?” said another with fish eye and pecs like a rocky outcrop.

“I play a girl…”

“You’ll do”.

It’s the kind of mysterious absolute my grandfather was master of.

Sitting in my flack jacket and helmet ready for take off, I thought again that for the cabin boys to get away with those butterscotch cat suits, they mustn’t be built like Anne Widdecombe.

I really suffered on the flight. Conned by the hype and thinking it would be like the TV series, the only book I had in my hand luggage was Hotel Babylon.

A Para Major woke a Royal Irish boy so he wouldn’t miss scoff.

Woah, it was hot in Kabul. We waited for three and a half hours in a holding bay for an armed convoy to take us eight hundred yards down the road to Camp Soutar. In the Scorpion, my tutu fell out of its bag and Rudy Lickwood, fellow turn, fell asleep. Two girls, maybe six and eight, stopped washing at a pump to run alongside begging.

We had an official briefing from Petty Officer Petty. (I kid you not).

“Sorry about the delay, the malaria risk, and things being dodgy out here at present. Best that you know. Oh, the noise at five forty-five each morning is The Call To Prayer, not an alarm. And” – turning to me - “so much better seeing you without your tutu. And talking of CSE, as you’ve all got here a day late, sorry, the outings we planned are cancelled”.

“No great loss”, said Angie. “Galina and me being girls, we’d have had to sit in the boots of the taxis or stand up in the cages on the buses”.

My Fan The Squaddie. Photo Angie Moore/CSE

Camp Soutar was once an industrial site and now looks like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory painted by Munsch. Turns and crew were allocated tents shared with soldiers going to Camp Bastion. CSE offered to do a show down there, but the Royal Engineers decided that they would rather leave a day earlier than have a day off to watch it. The water supply had run out, bottled water was rationed, and they were washing in whatever rainfall they could collect. In 110 degree heat.

I discovered a kiosk stocking Ossama souvenirs. Angie heard my cry of “oh, my sainted aunt” and came running. There were two rugs for sale.

“Look, miss, you can have either plane number one or plane number two being flown into the Twin Towers. It’s car-crash tufting”.

Americans love these rugs, apparently.

After that, I darned the shoes I started using in Iraq and did barre hanging onto the opening of our tent.

That first night, I felt deeply strange, and couldn’t tell if it was my malaria tablets or nerves. I wee’d seventeen times, schlepping through the lines of tents to the ablutions, scanning the ground for scorpions and camel spiders. At five forty-five am the Call To Prayer sounded. It was exquisite and I got up to go outside and hear properly.

At breakfast Steve Horsley, aka Prettiest Boy In The Camp, warned us that at a hundred Germans (?!) and twenty others were in quarantine for diarrhoea and vomiting.

PBITC

“And the virus causing it is airborne, so don’t any eat any dust”.

From then on we fled whenever we heard helicopters landing or taking off on the other side of the ant-blast wall and turned our backs to passing tanks, cars, cyclists, skateboarders, joggers, walkers, beatles, grass being blown in the wind, children playing marbles…

(Stop it! Ed).

I hung out with the Camp doctor and two Royal Marine Commandos nicknamed Smart Bloke One and Smart Bloke Two.

“It’s great for the lads that you people come out here”, the doctor said. “The Japanese and the Germans have always taken prostitutes to their soldiers, whereas this specific time CSE have sent us…?”

I thought about it.

“Two stand ups”, I said, “a school of Pam Ayres Middlesbrough United nut who told his future wife he was an Eskimo – and she believed him – a ventriloquist who got punched in the first five minutes of his opening summer season show at Blackpool for picking on a punter and who won’t get undressed in front of me any more (and him in his white Calvin Klein's was a masterpiece of manhood) because I said he was a novelty act, and me”.

“And what’s you?”

“I play a Russian ballerina…”

I was going to explain, but SB1 interrupted.

“I’ve heard about you”, he said. “You get people on stage and show them up. You so better not do that to me”.

“I won’t, now that we’ve bonded…”

“Put your eyebrows on it”.

“What?”

“If you get me on the stage, I’ll shave off your eyebrows”.

Whenever I saw him from them on he made the noise of an electric razor.

Outside the venue, tutu’d, tiar’d and knicker’d up waiting to go on for the opening gig, I met more of SB1’s Company. Matt Rodway, Omar and Limbo. They tried to make me go on patrol with them. I found out that Matt had a fine arts foundation, Omar got to the Olympics four hundred semis, and Limbo had a degree in journalism. Older than SB1, and in the company longer, they were so ripped from the training, I said they can’t have been in one piece in the first place...

“I hope your act’s better than that shit joke” said Matt.

Getting revenge on Matt... Photo Angie Moore/CSE

Note: Canadians are odd. I studied them. In the gym, the Brits are all sweaty in their vests and football shorts staying off the cross-trainer because it’s gay, the Americans are immaculate in grey t-shirts psyching themselves up to Garage for a game of ping pong with a medicine ball, and the Canadians are all in Chinese silk doing yoga while someone plays the guitar. The Brits have tits and bums up in their tents, the Americans have wrestling WWF stars, and the Canadians have adverts for natural yoghurt.

Someone from Logistics told me at dinner scoff that the Royal Marines stationed at Camp Soutar were the roll-mops, naked initiation right ones. I quizzed SB1.

“Yes, we are”, he said. “But no-one makes us do it, it’s our choice. And we’re banned from it now, in any case. I wanted to do it because it made me feel part of my Company”.

If the British public wants the Royal Marines to work as they do, they have to accept how they play, I reckon.

The Commandos. Gentlemen to their fingertips. Photo CSE

Prettiest Boy In The Camp laid on a finger buffet for us over at the Dog Handling Centre at curtain down. He was so impressed by those whirly round things I did for f-ing ages, we made a deal. I would turn up to cheerlead at the Royal Marines versus everyone else football match the next day wearing my tutu, do thirty-two fouettes on the sidelines, and he would play for two minutes wearing the love-hearts thong his girlfriend sent him.

Game on!

The next morning there was a hush in the camp because two Italians were killed on patrol. The repatriation of their bodies left a planeload of troops en route to Bastion stranded in Soutar. CO Sellars came to find us.

“Basically, I’ve got them all stranded here away from their companies, and nothing to do with them. Is there any hope you’d put on an extra show for them?”

Of course we would. Even though it meant that the football match would have to be cancelled. The strandees were really appreciative, and I noticed some of them out front at the next three shows. Before evening scoff, I went to the ablutions for a shower, opened the screen door, and they were all in there. I was too self-conscious to join them. I said to Spoons, our lighting guy, “not with my brewery belly and man-tits”. A squaddie overheard.

“Hey, tutu boy, go and shower with them. Five thousand morale points, darling”.

I still didn’t.

While I was out in the corridor waiting to go on for the evening show, three lads asked if they could have photographs with me. Things got nicely lairy. The stacked Scot made me hold his leg up in a folies bergeres pose and the tall one plucked my chest hairs while the aerodynamic (his word) one took the photographs. They went in to watch. And their “oh, shit!” faces when they realised I could and indeed did go into the audience during my act were a joy…

The Waltz Of The Flowers is just finishing...
Photo Angie Moore/CSE

Paul Zerdin, having stormed the gig yet again with his ventriloquism, sought me out as he always did to wish me luck. I felt in competition with him on the tour, not being the only novelty act on the bill.

“For the umpteenth time, don’t bloody call me a novelty act!”

Paul in front of our tent. Photo Angie Moore/CSE

I am in awe of what Paul does, especially since I’ve been back and watched the clips of him on www.paulzerdin.com. When his Sam puppet sings to Shirley Bassey and, no matter how wide the range of the song, there is no giveaway that Paul is making the sound, this is consummate skill. But, like me, he can giggle internationally off-stage. Angie remarked on how often she saw us both crumpled and tearful laughing like fools – on one dafter than usual occasion repeatedly quoting to each other the Honey Monster’s line “Tell Them About The Honey, Mummy” with the response “I’m Not His Mummy” – and how this would change to chilly concentration when we were preparing to go onstage. I quoted Fonteyn to her:

“There is a difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking oneself seriously. The first is imperative and the second disastrous”.

Major Matt “Gorgeous” Bradford, Royal Marines’ Commanding Officer, was in the audience on the last night in Kabul.

“The frisson is friggable”, I said.

I got him. He was an outstanding stooge, could pirouette, had a huge, but huge jump and a great line in bicep-kissing poses for Solor. While we largeing it through the Pas D’Action, giving the background to the Shades scene, I looked back at my three lairy lads from earlier and they were listening, rapt.

The next day, we flew to Khandahar. I got up with the Call To Prayer, knowing that we had to leave at six thirty, and was wondering why the others weren’t getting up. I thought, god I feel tired today, and looked at my phone to find that it was three thirty. It was some kind of extra prayers day. I was a bit hated later…

We went by Hercules to the American base in Khandhar. Angie got bumped off the plane and would have to follow tomorrow as would, buggery, our luggage. CSE bought us underwear, t-shirts, towels and toiletries.

On the plane. Photo Angie Moore/CSE

We were looked after by Captain Claire Williams. All our straight turns and tech’s fancied her. She was a little cowed at this, so I put her mind at rest later during scoff on the first evening.

“Don’t worry, miss, I told them you were an obvious lesbian to call them off”.

There were fried chicken, ham/cheeseburgers, ice cream, cookies, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, nachos and sour cream every day at every meal. A culinary Christmas Carol. And they look after their own and employ only American staff.

Claire gave us a security briefing. There had been regular mortar attacks on the area of the base where we were sleeping; the last one was three days before, two hundred yards off target.

“Whizzed past, huge fireball”.

She sounded a little special-needs gleeful, I thought.

As American postings last a year, they try to create home wherever they go. In Khandahar, they’re building a boardwalk like the one June Busts Out All Over in Carousel. Nothing was finished on base, other than the basketball court outside our venue. But, bless them, they share everything. Their canteens, transport, gym and ablutions – even the venue we used. Brits can’t afford to repay this generosity, budgeting as they do for each person stationed on base and for no more, and this is just fine.

So, it did annoy me that the front of house guys didn’t meet and greet non-British service people.

“They won’t get the humour”.

I told them that the Texans we had out front in Basra Palace howled with laughter.

We turns go outside on a charm offensive. And the Americans we coaxed in had a lovely time. We had dinner scoff with some of them. One asked me what “bloody hell” meant, and we decided eventually that it was between god’darnit and shit. Later, Beth from the canteen thanked me – “you the Cinderella!” for coming out here, when I didn't have to, and for helping out the folks. I thanked her for coming out here, and for singing as she served me grits, which were new on me and lovely. Both our morale levels went up. Easy.

The American loving me...? Photo Angie Moore/CSE

Time to leave…

The gigs had terrific responses in Khandahar. And I loved it there in spite of the heat, the dust, the stink from the cesspool, and fear. I added a skit to my set, pulling up random rowdy boys to be the corps Shades to my soloist, changing their tendu leg on the count of eight.

We did photo calls with the boys, and they were gracious and happy lads. HQ and Logistics asked if CSE could make a Madame Galina calendar? I welled up.

While I was clearing the dressing room, I silently blessed the crossed wires that led to my audition for CSE that daft day last November, and thought back to the evening more years ago than I’m admitting when I saw Swan Lake for the first time and came out into the Covent Garden foyer to ask Stella Beddard, then working in the bookstall

”What does it mean when she’s banging herself in the head with the flat of her hand…is it some kind of conversation?”

and Galina got going.

As I walked up the steps to the Tristar, someone handed me a signed photo of our venue bouncer, Tommy. As I had made Tommy be a corps de ballet Shade some nights, I was clearly forgiven.

"And you change tendu leg on the last beat..." Photo Angie Moore/CSE

Off the plane, home, we all remarked on the wonderful smell of the horse chestnuts. Nice change from rolling-boil cess.