Madame Galina's Doings Diary

Stockholm, Lair Of My Viking Petter

Stockholm is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, and my best friend in the world lives there. Except I didn’t know that till I went there. And met him.

On the sixth of January I did a ten minute spot for Medium Rare: the outfit that is currently putting the Va Va Voom back into Variety. Sorry about that quote; but one of our dressing room games on tour was thinking up crap alliterative flyer blurb…

Other acts were discussing a trip to Stockholm the following week. I felt left out. My spot went splendidly, though, and the next day I got an e-mail from Mat Whitley, the man behind Medium Rare, commenting on how the troop trips had skyrocketed my confidence, and would I please do as much of the season in Stockholm as I could.

Yes, I would.

And at Skavsta airport, there he was. Petter Eneman. And here he is…

Awwwwwwwwwwwww…never have I been so cared about, planned for, or treated with such kindness.

On the hour drive from the airport into Stockholm, he drily pointed out touristy things such as Ikea and the ten plus roadside McDonalds.

“Are you from Stockholm?” I asked.

“No, I’m from the South. Which is why Pontus take the piss’s out of my accent. I moved to Stockholm to make things happen. Now I gots the job working for him.”

“What did you do before?”

“I was a photographer.”

I offered to let him take photos of me in the tutu for his book.

“There’s a big Christmas Tree outside the venue, how abouts next to that?”

His wayward “s” use, and the fact that he might join in with my daft ideas, was endearing him to me.

We were now in the old part of Stockholm, and Petter reacted with obvious pride in his country to my continual “Oh my God: how beautiful” s.

See?

Our venue, Pontus By The Sea, is a converted customs house. (Pace Galina calling it a prefabricated fishing hut). The owner is Pontus Frithiof, the Swedish equivalent of Gordon Ramsay; except that he’s a thoroughly nice bloke and has made his success from talent, slog and having a mind like Miss Marple.

The great man.

“That’s your home for the next two weeks”, said Petter, driving past it. “And just round here is your hotel.”

The Hotel Esplanade. Homely, eine kleine kitsch, and run by Maria, who adopted us all. When we came in and she was on the desk in the afternoon, she fetched us tea and biscuits; in the early evening it was dry sherry; and last thing it was hot chocolate. All of it on the house.

We were free on the first evening and got treated to dinner at the venue. The food was fantastic, and the staff were clearly chuffed that Medium Rare were back for a second season of shows. Earl Okin, opening the show and a great favourite last year, was appearing on the Swedish Richard and Judy the following morning. The excitement. We all said that we’d be up to watch him. At the close of the meal, however, Pontus brought out the Swedish licquers. Early morning, shmearly shmorning, frankly.

Barely awake the following afternoon I went down to the venue for my sound check. Moira Finucane, Melbourne performance artist, came wide-eyed into the dressing room and made me go outside with her and along the shore a couple of hundred yards to look at a statue of one of the past kings of Sweden.

“That is you on that plinth”, Moira said. It was, too. Exactly like me.

Back in the venue, there was another resemblance shock when Thomas the sound technician arrived. He looked exactly like photographs of my father in his twenties. I called Thomas either “dad” of “papa” and he called me “son” from the off. I actually forgot his real name, and when in the second week, Mat asked me to talk to Thomas about the level for the Minkus, I asked:”Who’s Thomas?”

Odd to be parented properly, bless Thomas for joining in with my imaginary world. He was there at the venue every day when I arrived, he gave me postitive feedback when I had performed, he forbade me to Swedish obsecenities onstage, and when my voice was buggered he bought me some salty licqourice sweets which cleared the cattarrh enough for me to talk. When I got overtired and paranoid, I went to him and sounded off. He gave me one great bit of fatherly advice: "You cannot know that for certain, so why put a bad light on it?"

Talking of bad light, it gloams for bloody hours in the Swedish winter. Filip Zubaczek, one of the waiters at Pontus By The Sea, said how much everyone was missing the snow.

“We haven’t had it. And we need it. It gives more light.”

When it came, I saw what he meant. Still, walking around in the twilight I came across St. Jakob's Kyrka, went in to have a look around, and caught the end of an organ recital. A thrilling piece of Bach heard in the candlelit blue and gold beauty of the main chancel made me feel small and very priveleged.

I formed a working partnership that was very intense. If anyone had told me that I would watch a juggling act and cry at the sheer élan of it, I would have nodded and smiled. But I cried every time I watched Timo out front.

Timo Wopp

Known in Germany as the Paganini Juggler, he started juggling aged thirteen when lessons were offered in his Hamburg School.

“My parents never tried to stop me doing anything. Maybe that is a problem. I am now an egoist”.

Mr. and Mrs. Wopp sound as though they might be a little like the Viz Modern Parents.

“My rebellion, because all teenagers have to rebel, you know, was to like the Rocky films. My parents and I laugh about it now, but that kind of violence was not what they were into at all.”

Every night while we put on our slap, Timo said three phrases over and over in a cod American accent. “Probably seventies” and “I did all the stunts myself” and “A woman cries, a fighter fights.” I didn’t like to comment on this barminess in case it was a pre-performance ritual (something sacred) but he started me calling me Adrienne.

“Sorry, Timo, but what are you talking about?”

“It’s Rocky.”

“You don’t sound anything like Sylvester Stallone.”

“Thank you. That’s because the films were overdubbed into German and I don’t know what he sounds like!”

The next night, when I went in early to do barre, there he was on one of the huge sofas backstage, playing the latest Rocky trailer on his PC and with the accent now nearly perfect.

In all things, he is a dedicated chap. In Stockholm, he practised his act from four till six-thirty each day onstage as well as warming up for a good hour and a half before he performed. I took him to task on opening night for the aggressive exercises that he used.

“That isn’t a warm up. You haven’t raised your pulse rate, and you’re starting with full leg lunges. And those arms swings need to at least start as though you’d like your arm still attached to your body at the end of them.”

“I do all the stunts myself”, he said, shadow-boxing with me.

“Don’t change the subject. When you come to England, I’m taking you to Brize Norton to meet the P.T.I. Corporal and he’ll sort you out.”

He said he had yet to see how I moved, not having watched my act.

When he came back in the interval, he was complimentary, but said I needed to cut the “came on the bus from the ghetto, did we?” line, as it got the wrong kind of laugh. I got off lightly. One act he thought should be given a bath, some Slim Fast and a shave. And this was a girl…

“Iestyn, please, I would value your opinion on the dance element in my set."

I went out front after the interval and watched him. His act floored me. No wonder he was invited to do the Royal Variety Show and Cirque De Soleil. And he's the only juggler ever to close a show on the German Variety circuit: NB in the barnstorming-rather than box office poison-sense. In the Don Q-inspired opening routine juggling a fan, however, in spite of some gorgeous Pas De Chats and great strutting stuff done on demi-pointe, I noticed some irrelevant faffy secondes and that all the steps were performed en face. When I told him this he said:

“Then you will be here tomorrow, please, at four o’clock and will correct these things. Thank you.”

I was at the venue at four. And, ouch, he mistimed catching the fan, which was metal framed and heavy, and ended up with a gash right at the point on his finger where he ought to have caught it. Having watched it bleed for a few seconds he said: “This will cause a problem for me later.”

Filip was there watching and he went to the kitchen for plasters. Timo used two or three of them, and went right on trying to learn the new steps.

Backstage at the gig on the eve of our free day that week, he said:

“You have not been at breakfast. I would like you to be please at breakfast tomorrow at ten. Then when it gets dark we will go and see the new James Bond film, and then I invite you for a snack to say thank you.”

And I went along with it all, no question. A few scenes into the film, he turned to me and said:

“I thought this was supposed to be a love story, and look at them running about and making a noise shooting at each other.”

I hadn’t been at breakfast because I had been clubbing a lot after shows. Petter came to watch on the opening night and waited around for me afterward, introduced me to his friends, and took me to a club. Which turned into another club, and a third, with staff from Pontus coming and going, buying drinks that I didn't like to leave undrunk, until I remember shouting at some girls, being taken away by Filip, seeing Mat, and getting back to the hotel at ten to six in the morning. I had still had the spins at five in the afternoon.

That was the night that Timo challenged me.

“What is your best trick?”

“Tonight, Matthew, it will be managing to walk from here to the stage without either falling down, throwing up or both of those.”

“But seriously what is it?”

“Italian fouettes like Alla Sizova used to do them: with every fourth a pull in double pirouette arms in fifth. I’ve only ever managed that once. And I mean once: one double pirouette, and that nearly landed me on my face. I only did it because ballerina Cindy Jourdain was out front and she’s from Paris. Why? What’s yours?”

He showed me. I thought what he was doing with the five clubs: flicking them in turn round his arm and onto his foot to be kicked back around again had to be the drink juggling. It wasn’t.

“You show your trick onstage tonight, and I show mine.”

Alla Sizova (or rather Alka Seltzer, see what I did there?) here I come. And God bless Dr. Footlights, because in the interval my father came backstage beaming with pride.

“Son, what was all that extra stuff in your opening solo? We couldn’t believe it.”

And there was Timo smiling with the five clubs whirling where it didn’t look possible they could. And that’s when it came to me.

“Don Quixote”, I said. “Kitri makes her entrance doing all this flash stuff with the fan, and flirting her head off, and then Basil comes on playing the guitar, flirting his head off, and they get pissed off at each other, and have this competitive number. What if we replaced his guitar playing and, in fact, his dancing with juggling? A Pas De Deux mixing ballet and juggling skills.”

He stopped juggling and frowned for a few moments.

“That’s genius. Could we try it out in one of your solo shows over here? I like to try everything out and make sure of the workings.”

“Could we do it in Germany? Earl says I’d do well on the Variety circuit over there.”

“On some of it. On other of it you’d frighten the old ladies to death.”

He’s coming to London this Wednesday and we’re starting work.

One classic night the place was booked out for a wine convention. Some of the top sommeliers in Sweden were out front (or on stage auditioning to play Solor to my Nikya by the time I’d done with them) and on a table in the middle of the room was Petter.

We’d what if’d for hours by this time: his plans to open a club in Stockholm, or to become a front man in one of Pontus’s restaurants. My hopes of becoming a newspaper columnist, of having my own comedy show on TV and of one day giving a recital at the Wigmore Hall. Please God Petter will achieve his goals: he’s another one of life’s hard workers; as well as being funny, kind and a gentleman. And I know he wishes me what I wish for myself; though I got the feeling he wouldn't want at the expense of my being onstage in a tutu saying "Did you like my entrance? My Beauty always comes in the back door!" or embarassing the King Of Sweden's best friend so much I hear how pleased the Queen will be. (This best friend annoys the Queen by bringing his over-young wife to formal occasions and overcomplicating the placement).

Anyway, everyone out front in Pontus By The Sea that night knew about the bond between the Babe and The Ballerina, and I would need to be careful how I went about choosing him for the audition: extracting the maximum crowd roar for the use of. Before I went onstage, I asked my father to translate something into Swedish for me. And we were off. The Alla Sizova version was definitely in use that night, and then I was offstage on the hunt. I clocked Petter hunkering down in his chair (as if!), chose my two other stooges, paused for a long, long time, making the audience wait for what they knew was coming. And then I turned.

“Pettorrrr”, I screamed, imitating the Southern pronunciation of his name, “there you are.”

Pressing him to my chest, I said in Swedish, “These are the specials on offer today!"

With all the noise, I don’t think anyone heard me say it - and I’d practised it and everything.

In the interval my father commented on the softer side of Galina that Petter brought out. A lot of discussion went on in Stockholm about why Galina is like she is. With Petter, she was different.

“Much less hard and self-sufficient.”

But when Viking Renaissance Man catches you full flight easily in his arms, surely it’s time for any flintiness to stop?

On the last day but one, I took Petter to lunch. He translated my review in the Daily Journal (hoorah!) and in the afternoon we watched ice skating while he did his laundry. The last night, we went out with the gang. Having said two goodbyes to him, I just made it up to my hotel room with a tray of hot chocolate and biscuits and a goodnight kiss from Maria before I started sobbing like an old lady.

Next day, before the cab came to take me to the airport, I went on a farewell to my Stockholm haunts walk. I got to thinking about the great operatic diva Giuditta Pasta: how in retirement she was content to potter around in her old coat looking after her turkeys. I’d like to imagine Galina when even Dying Swan is beyond her, in a large apartment in Stockholm’s Old Town, in my old cardigan bought in the Zara sale, singing the song I made up for my father -

(Sung to that bit of music in The Nutcracker where the woman has all the kids hidden in her skirt) Yoga Yoga Yoga Yoga, Here Comes My Father On His Sled!

- ironing Petter’s shirts.

When Sammo Met Ballet

Afghanistan Second Tour. Day One.

I was in the Post Office getting dollars when Nicky Ness, aka Miss, aka Head Of Combined Services Entertainment texted to say I must ring her pronto. Impossible as I had gone completely jelly-brain (pre-tour nerves) at the Bureau De Change window.

“I want a round number of dollars, please”

“From what amount?”

“The nearest one that will make a round number of dollars.”

“Approximately?”

“Can I not have it exactly?”

“Yes, but you need to tell me how many pounds you’ll be giving me to start with.”

The cent dropped. “God, sorry. I need to give you a ball-park figure, don’t I? Say around sixty pounds?”

And we were off. Except we weren’t. When I rang Nicky, she told me that the RAF had changed the flight time and left without us.

“We’re working on Plan B and I should be able to let you know what that is in a couple of hours.”

I went home in a state of limbo. I was supposed to be somewhere else and couldn’t be.

Plan B was a train ride to Oxford next day, where I would be met by Ian Nicholls, managing this tour because taking girls (Miss, Miss 2 aka Mrs. Avlianos or Miss 3) with us would create an ablutional logistical nightmare. Ian and I were to stay at a Travelodge overnight and check in at Brize Norton by six thirty the following morning. All went to plan.

Day Two.

I was straight back in the saddle at Brize Norton recognising some regiments by the insignia and Royal Marines specifically by their glutes. I read The Girls Of Slender Means and Queen Lucia on the flight, and at Kandahar hung out with some of the Marines on their way to what sounded like Lashkezar. Sorry - I don’t do places. I get lost going from Camden to Oxford Street. One of the Marines, a dusky marvel from Manchester, was all smiles at winning the Jut Of The Year Prize.

“But when the f*** did you get to check out my arse?” he asked me. “I’ve been sitting on this table since you came over here.”

“You were lying doing an American Muscle Guild tribute shot by the beverage dispenser in Hanover airport.”

“Jesus…”

“You could stack crates of beer on it.”

“Not where we’re going, it’s a dry camp.”

So glad he said that. I could give them my “I’m a slightly moist camp, now” gag.

And get a laugh, thank you, so enough of the groaning in the wings.

We were met by Hilary Grandison. She’s a dinky, blonde army captain from Fife. We immediately hit it off, sharing as we do an obsession with the Tay Bridge disaster. Not everyone likes the way she tells us what we’re going to do and at what hundred hours we’re going to do it, but I do. It’s reassuringly like my ballet teacher saying, “Artistic licence don’t talk rubbish put Odette’s first posee bang on the first chord, please”, or my singing teacher bellowing, “If yet again you don’t breathe in that rest marked in Ev’ry Valley Shall Be Exalted then either you’ll strangle yourself or I will…”

Hilary drove us to the VIP quarters.

“Oh look”, I say, “Someone’s Polyfilla’d in the mortar hole in that wall over there by the nice tree. It took years longer to fill in the hole in the Bargoed Church wall after my aunt’s brakes failed on the hill above it and she was unable to turn right as she planned because she had told my Nancy Ak what had happened and what she was now about to do to avoid hitting the wall, and Nancy scuppered the plans by grabbing the steering wheel with both hands screaming that they were both going to die.”

Silence in the mini-bus.

I put the heater on in the four man room I’m sharing. It lowed loudly. I couldn’t switch it off.

Day 3.

I didn’t sleep very well at all due to the lowing and woke up with a full-on caffeine hanker. Jogging down the corridor to the ablutions, I noticed that it was a beautiful sunny morning, and that raised my spirits. The shower was hot. Hoorah.

Hilary tipped up at precisely ten hundred hours (so precisely I wondered if she was standing outside waiting to time her first knock) to take us to the boardwalk for coffee and doughnuts from the Canadian Café. With her was another Royal Navy captain called Russ, who is gregarious and chipper. We looked round the shops on the Boardwalk and I haggled for a Pashmina.

In the afternoon we went to the venue, the same one as last time, still called a tent even though it’s a hangar. And there was Ben. Except he introduced himself as Sammo. And he got pissed off when I asked him: “And what do you do in the armed services, please.”

“What do you mean “please?””

And walked away.

Hilary called him back and asked him to hang the CSE flag over a beam, and I heard him muttering something about there being privates standing around, before he manhandled a bloody big ladder onto the stage and nipped up it.

“He’s the P.T.I.” Hilary explained, watching him hoist the flag. “Hence the muscles.”

“He is big, isn’t he?” I agreed. He didn’t rise to me making that comment in a stage whisper probably audible in Skegness. Then he left.

This is from my Afghanistan Diary leading up to the time when Iestyn met Sammo. He went back to his office having put up the flag, and told all his colleagues that he had just met the biggest prick ever.

Poor little me…

But we talked properly before curtain up and I thawed him a little, and then when I got him on the stage and he did one of the most outstanding auditions to play Solor (including random gargouillades like a New York City Ballet girl) we bonded. At curtain down, when the photo was taken, he shook my hand and admitted he’d been wrong about me.

A privelege to know. My mate the Corporal.

“But I was in a bit of a strop because everyone was ordering me around before you got there, and I’m not being funny but I am a Corporal and there were privates doing nothing, and they wanted me to go and get pizza for the sound man. I know I’m in welfare and I’ll go out of my way, but I don’t take the piss and don’t expect people to take the piss out of me.”

Hilary tried to make him model the CSE T-shirt. He wouldn’t.

“Just wanting me to get my top off…”

I tried to persuade him.

“No. I’m not doing it. Tell you what: you won’t come and do my circuits class in the gym tomorrow wearing your tutu, will you? That would be embrassing for you. So, I’m not…Where are you going?”

“To get you a T-Shirt. If I promise to turn up to the gym, then, you’ll put the T-Shirt on?”

“You so won’t”.

But I saw that he almost smiled as I handed him to T-shirt.

“This is a medium, isn’t it?”

Oh, my stars…

“Small.”

“Twat.”

He let me take the warm up in the class the next day - “I can’t believe you turned up. And in full rig”, criticised me when I did a hamstring hang before getting the class’s pulse rate up, jeered when I did trenches tick tock and not alternately, “How can a Ballerina be that uncoordinated?” and pointed out that a four foot nothing Dutch nurse did the boxing exercise more aggressively than I did.

All this from a man who trains para’s. I felt privileged. And Ben exemplifies the attitude I found in Iraq and Afghanistan, of the military going out of their way. He actively seeks to make life better. For his colleagues, it would probably be enough just to have someone that comic around. (I roared when we went out for smoothies and he told me stories of when he was an apprentice at Bristol FC). But he arranges sports tournaments, daft events, has inter-pc caption competitions, and for Christmas Day he organised a Charity Fun Run. I was sad to leave him when we went off to Camp Bastion.

But there I was looked after by 9th Squadron, who allowed me to get ready in their hangar opposite the venue, as there wasn’t enough room for Ronds De Jambes backstage. I dumped my stuff in the afternoon and went off for Scoff. When I came back at the half, the 9th boys had put up a curtain for me to change behind and moved the heating pipe so that it would heat this changing area. When I realised that I had left my mirror in the venue, they moved one of their trucks into the middle of the hangar for me to use the wing mirror on it. I was included in the tea run; and when I started barre, they handed me the TV remote as I “probably needed music for that that you’re doing, rather than the footy. MTV Christmas hits is on. Will that do?”.

Perfect. Because then I could pretend it was Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You that had made me cry…