Curiouser and curiouser

No its not the supposedly rubbish Alice in Wonderland! I went to the Old Red Lion to see a play called Alice's Adventures in the New World.

It had a brilliant summary on the promo info which made it essential viewing in my book:

It is 1882. You are a seventeen year-old girl and you have just discovered your deceased mother is still alive and living in America. You set off to find her and meet:


a) an artist with an opium addiction
b) a depressed Socialist preaching free love
c) a hypochondriac debutante
d) a cattle rustler whose four husbands have all mysteriously disappeared
e) Oscar Wilde

f) your mother or
g) all of the above.

If you get a chance you should really go and see it. With an all female, corset wearing cast - the male characters were distinguished by a paper moustache - its very clever and even breaks into a song and a little dance every now and again.

We were left a bit deflated by the ending but the journey itself was superbly acted, funny and touching.

My life in three acts

I went to see the rather marvellous life story of Bette Bourne the other day at the Soho theatre. It was a moving and amusing slice of living history that is usually hidden in the LGBT world.

Although it was slightly scripted - a re-enactment of a conversation between Bette and Mark Ravenhill - it was still pretty amazing.

I could have listened to Bette talk for hours. It made me wonder why we never get to hear from the older LGBT crowd. If you listen to Bette's story it make's you realise that many of his peers probably never made it that far.

I think we should listen more to wonderful people like Bette and learn from the tales they have to tell.

Lesson number 1: If someone picks you up in Soho, takes you back to their flat, and tells you they are not queer, they are probably lying. As Bette said, 'turned out he was very queer indeed!' LOL

Middle aged minge but still hot!

How rude! I saw the lovely and liberated Ursula Martinez last night. She did a show at the Barbican, telling short stories from her life, and then recounting emails she recieved after a copy of her Hanky Panky magic show appeared on the internet a few years ago.

For those who haven't seen it, this is the clip she showed us

The emails she read out were hilarious and accompanied by photos of sad looking middle-aged American men, nudists who wanted to use her as a poster girl to champion their cause, or those who just wanted to do something else to her.

I enjoyed both halves of the show but I really could have just listened to her telling the snippets of stories from her life all night, especially as she is from the same 'manor' as me.

Oh, and she did get naked at the end!

Wotever Winter Ball

I got dressed up in a lovely 80s style frock to go to Wotever's great winter ball on Saturday. The venue was a throwback to a bygone era, and was decorated like the prom I never had (lunch time school discos aren't quite the same I feel).

The music was great cheesy 80s, the dance card with the slow dance power ballads was inspired and the table of cupcakes had to be seen  - and tasted to be believed.

There was a prom photographer, a kissing booth and at midnight we got two rather saucy bedtime stories from writers Shaun Levin and Helen Sandler.

My prom photo on the left.

Modest me, no immodest!

Last night I went to the premiere of Burlesque Undressed, with a promised appearance by Immodesty Blaize. Although this event had her stamp all over it, the appearance was more the fact that she was sat in the audience.

The film was really interesting. With the history and interviews with burlesques' golden girls being a highlight. It was filmed at events that I have actually seen so in one respect it didn't hold anything new, but it was good to see close ups of the acts, and the audience - in which a friend of mine features.

The camera work was a bit low budget and all over the place occasionally, and my advice to Immodesty would be not to go into acting! Sometimes speaking ruins the mystique. She is stunning though, and its a stunningly colourful film. Oh and as always, Dirty Martini you rock!

100 club, 100s of people

I went to the beacon of Oxford Street, the 100 club last week to see Macavitys Cat and the Men They Couldn't Hang. It was a packed night and lots of exuberant bouncing ensued. I had a slight sense of humour failure when a drunken bouncer managed to simultaneously knock my drink and step on my feet repeatedly. After managing to shimmy away my mood improved, although perhaps it didn’t for those who were now standing around her.

Macavitys cat have been around in various guises over the years. They are lots of fun, and it increases proportionally to the amount of them on the stage. They seemed a little unhappy in there early time slot, and referred to it frequently in a good natured way!

When the Men they couldn't hang came on, serious politically rousing tunes commenced, well for a while anyway. It turned into a moshing, throng of beered up bodies, and we all went home happy.

Turner, a bit of a copycat

I went to the Tate Britain at the weekend to see the Turner exhibition and I have come to the conclusion he was a bit of a sod.

He used to find artists he liked, and copy their work, attempting to make it bigger or better. He also used to find out what people were due to exhibit and then paint the same subject, he made final touches to works, and even turned up to exhibitions with a blank canvas, that he filled when he had looked what everyone else was doing.

I admire that kind of steely determination, however, the exhibition made me realise that in 9 out of 10 cases I preferred the original, and that's why this exhibition was so good. A must see for compare and contrast purposes.