Michael "Atters" Attree: What performing for BABC means to me.

Wall to wall totty!

Michael "Atters" Attree is Brighton's most famous cabaret host and 'Ealing Comedies-style villainous cad about town' and he will be the special guest host at the Burlesque Against Breast Cancer night at The Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. For more info, go to: www.thechap.net

Also in this picture are Therese La Tease, Stella Starr and Honour Mission, who will also be performing on the night.

Naomi Woddis: What performing for BABC means to me.

Performing at the BABC is really important to me - as well as being an extremely fun and warm-hearted experience I am proud to be part of something that is raising awareness about a challenging and life threatening illness. It also gives me chance to write new work which is always pleasing. I never though I'd write a poem about my aging boobs but I did!

Naomi Woddis has featured at the O2 Wireless Festival, Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the London Literature Festival. Her innovative collaboration online invention, Poerty Mosaic (www.poetrymosaic.wordpress.com) is gaining in international popularity. Her pamphlet "Life is Music" was published in 2007.

Therese La Tease: What performing for BABC means to me.

I feel greatly honoured to be performing at this year's BABC and shall be dancing in memory of both my grandmothers who were touched by breast cancer.

Therese La Tease will be performing at the Ocean Rooms in Brighton for Burlesque Against Breast Cancer on October 16th. For more info, go to: www.myspace.com/tesofthedrtyvillas

Bea DeVile: What performing for BABC means to me.

As I write this, I'm looking at a photo of my mum and her two sisters that I took at a family wedding earlier this year.

One of these women has had treatment for breast cancer, including a mastectomy. She has had a five year course of Tamoxifen, which is the maximum length of time it can be prescribed for, and since that ended she has found that the cancer has metastasised to the bones in both hips. The secondary bone cancer is treated by gruelling radiotherapy and then transfusions to strengthen the bone, but it doesn't reduce the pain.

Very few people even know that she has had treatment for breast cancer, and fewer still know how much pain she is now in most of the time.

A mother of four and a grandmother of five - she is the quietest, most unassuming, and bravest person I know.

Bea DeVile will be performing at Burlesque Against Breast Cancer at the Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. For more info, go to: www.myspace.com/bea_devile

A Little Midnight Magic Part One

After Club Smooch, I was itching to get back on the stage. Particularly after seeing so many good friends. I told you Danny was there but did I mention Chrissie of Curve Couture was in the audience? She shot backstage to wish us all luck or break a leg and I'm amazed she managed it up the stairs in her gorgeously high red sparkly shoes! I'm always surprised by how many neck-breakingly steep stairs are in most backstage areas. I suppose it adds to the thrill! I was pleased that she got to see her Curve Couture masterpiece onstage.

So Thursday night, I was back in Hastings for Burlesk! Cabaret Carnivale. I had such a great time last time I was there I was so pleased to be back. Hastings is only just up the coast from Brighton and a very cruisy train journey had me there in no time. As I've perfected the art of 'On train make-up application' I only had my hair and a bit of glittering to do when I got there.

Ah yes, it's a glamorous life. I can even put on false eyelashes on the train. I'm not quite sure what my fellow train goers think of me, but I've long since stopped caring if it saves me a half hour at home!

Lady Severine who runs the night was the spectacular ring master for the night, resplendent in her top hat and hands down the best chest in burlesque. We actually had a bit of time for a chat over a glass of wine and the curling tongs which was nice for a change from frantic preparations. Most excitingly it looks like I'll be back for their Christmas show as well!

Miss Glory Pearl was on in the first half, which I was excited about as we really hadn't seen each other since the London Burlesque festival. She performed her Sally Poles routine which I managed to catch from the window in the dressing room while getting dressed. I was concerned that I was going to either burn my hair or knock over the spotlight which was set up in the window so I only caught a few pole tricks, but it was looking pretty good to me!

On in the second half was Honour Mission, another Brighton lass who also happened to be at the Club Smooch show with me the week before. She was on right before me doing her stompingly good 50 foot woman act, so I didn't see her act but I could hear it just fine. Those buildings don't stand a chance! Honour Mission, if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, is the very definition of an Amazon. Quite a woman.

After catching the end of Domino's act (fabulous as usual) and having a brief chat with the other performers we had to dash, but not before I had a chance to speak with Sinan Bozkurt. Sin has done most of the pictures from Burlesk! that I have on my website and excepting that he's also a very sweet man. I had just enough time to discuss a possible photo shoot and to take a few pictures after the show.

Gosh, how lucky was I to get a lift home with Honour! To be delivered to my door is a very rare luxury which I enjoyed immensely as we laughed all the way home, Honour, myself and her 'roadie' her very kind friend who was doing the driving. We spoke about Honour’s post here. I won't go into it now except to say that after sharing some stories with Honour I will be writing a special blog about my family's brush with Cancer. I believe Honour has bravely done so as well and after hearing her story in the car on the way home it made me think how many incredible stories must be out there.

Bella De Jac will be performing at the Ocean Rooms in Brighton for BABC on the 16th October. For more, go to: www.belladejac.com

The Further Burlesque Adventures of Miss Dolly Rose…

Due to my current enforced living in the west country situation, and my reluctance to miss out on London burlesque based fun due to this, the last month or so has seen me on an awful lot of trains. On the plus side, I have made the discovery that the hot chocolate they sell on First Great Western Trains is actually quite nice?! The coffee not so much.

It has also seen me taking advantage of the loveliness of my friends floors/sofas/spare beds…special thankyou's must go to the lovely Duchess Divine for putting me up for three nights after I cleverly booked myself for four shows in the space of a weekend without thinking about the ‘I don’t actually live in London’ side of things. Whilst staying with Duchess, we were both booked to perform at her friend’s stag do on the Friday night. I wasn’t really sure what to expect having never performed at a stag do before and not really ever had any previous plans to end up doing so, but it was actually really fun and something I’d definitely do again if I knew the people involved, really nice atmosphere and we were well looked after!

Saturday saw us all venturing off to the wilds of Colliers Wood for the Dark Mills Festival, where Duchess had put together an excellent line-up of some of the loveliest ladies in burlesque, plus BABC’s very own Mark Farley reading erotic fiction from the Burlesque Against Breast Cancer book.



After a lovely time despite the delayed dressing room entry and my subsequent frantic attempts to get into my costume in 15 minutes (apologies to anyone I stressed at!), I was off to Shoreditch to perform at the gorgeous Emerald Fontaine’s night at The Fox, where lots of fun and some excellent cupcakes were had. The night was vintage English summer themed, and I was most impressed by the Astroturf croquet lawn in the smoking area!

And after such a busy weekend, it was off back to the West Country for what was intended to be a quiet night of sleep and rest, but somehow turned into me going out and drinking slightly too much cider (these things do happen in Somerset), before venturing back to London for Flay & Deville’s Circus of Marvels on the Monday, which was a really great night with wonderful performers, I highly recommend it!

Last Wednesday saw me up in London yet again for ‘Beyond the Cabaret’ at the Tiger’s Rear. One of my friends has just moved up to London from Bath, so I dragged him along (and may maybe possibly have specifically asked the night’s host Kiki Kaboom to pick on him…sorry Callum, but it was too tempting!). I did my West Country act which is always fun times, although I must apologise to all the other performers for the tendency my hay has to get absolutely everywhere.

I’m imagining a lot of people will be finding mystery hay lurking in their costumes over the next week or two! All of the performers at Beyond the Cabaret were absolutely brilliant, but special mention must go to Frisky and Mannish for covering Wuthering Heights in the style of Kate Nash, something I can’t say I ever thought I would see, but which I’m very glad I did!

This week, I’ve been having a nice quiet rest after all my London adventures, but I’m back up again this Thursday for the British Burlesque Invasion show, and the following Saturday for Duchess’s ‘1 in 4’ night which will be raising awareness of mental health in aid of the charity ‘Mind’, plus a few exciting shows down in Bath later in the month, so hopefully I’ll have a lot more to write about soon!

Miss Dolly Rose is a rising star in the UK burlesque scene. She has performed for BABC in the past and she can be found at www.myspace.com/missdollyrose

Guest Blogger: Beatrix Von Bourbon

I had an absolute blast performing at Ritual fetish club in Rome on Friday. The event was really busy and had a great party energy. I’d certainly recommend the club to anyone travelling to Rome.

Qube is a divine venue with 4 giant disco balls outside and copious amounts of gold glitter inside. Plus, the DJ booth’s surrounded by a small water pool! It was quite amazing!

I managed to snap a quick photo of the stage on my phone before the doors opened, but I’m sure many photos will be added to the Ritual Facebook Group in due course…

As the more observant of you may have gathered from my acts list, I will be debuting 2 new acts when I return to Stuttgart for 3.5 months at the end of this year.

For the past 9 months I’ve been slowly researching, creating, costume-making, out-sourcing and choreographing two new acts: Cinderella and Milkshake. But I must admit… Perhaps the *most* exciting bit for me is watching the prop for my milkshake act come together. My 6 foot tall milkshake glass is being custom-made by the team at Spur Creative in East Sussex.

And before you think about it, no, I won’t be bathing in chocolate milk! The exact content of the act will be revealed in due course…

Beatrix Von Bourbon is a top international model and performer and will be headlining for Burlesque Against Breast Cancer at Dirty Dicks in London on October 21st. For more Beatrix, visit www.vonbourbon.com