New Routines, Exciting Times!

Just in case I wasn’t busy enough with performing about six times this month and trying to sort out my post-university career, I also decided now would be excellent timing to sort out two new routines. I am so full of good and entirely practical ideas! Still, new routines are always fun to create, for the joy of being able to spend all your money on expensive sparkly underwear and soothe your financial conscience with the excuse that it’s for ‘work’ if nothing else….

I got my first ever pair of fans as a present from my parents for finishing my degree and used them for a seaside themed fan dance over the summer, but I decided with November rapidly approaching the likelihood of being booked for a nautical or seaside themed night is rapidly dwindling, so I’m busy reworking things for a slightly darker more winter-appropriate number.

This is really the first time I’ve done a ‘serious’ routine as I’m generally all about the ridiculous plotlines, props etc and I must say it’s given me a lot more respect for performers who do more serious acts. I’ve always thought that creating funny routines was a lot more of a challenge than just ‘being glamorous and taking your clothes off’, but working on my fan dance has altered my views on the matter somewhat! Not being able to rely on keeping people amused via the medium of comedy moustache disguises and pole dancing on hay bales makes keeping things entertaining and ensuring people don’t fall asleep half way through is quite the challenge.

I’m having to ensure I put a lot of effort into costume and choreography to make sure it’s still interesting to watch. On the plus side, I did kinda use the whole having to make sure the costume was interesting thing as an excuse to buy myself some lace print Atsuko Kudo latex I’ve been wanting for years, so that was something of a silver lining to the unforeseen challenges!

I’m also working on a new double act with the lovely Lena Mae which will see me firmly back in comedy territory. Working on double acts is awesome fun and I’m super excited to see how this one turns out, although also a little nervous, as due to the fact that Lena and I currently live a good couple of hours on the train away from each other we only have two full days to get the choreography sorted. Fingers crossed all will run smoothly!

Having said that, me and Lena’s double act performances have something of a history of being a bit of a shambles (injuries from hitting each other in the face, getting stuck in bras, the list goes on), yet always being a lot of fun and going down well, so I’m sure this one will be fine on the night!

I probably shouldn’t tempt fate by saying that, but still, it’s good to be optimistic…

Other than working on my new acts I haven’t been up to an awful lot burlesque related since I last wrote, however last Saturday I was in London for the afternoon to perform for ‘Naughty Sorts presents 1 in 4’, a charity event raising money for Mind. It was a great event and I was really happy to be a part of it, but unfortunately I was struck down by an evil cold of doom two days before the show, and spent most of the time before I went on feeling very sorry for myself and panicking that I was going to sneeze all over the audience. Stripping with a bright red nose and a hideous cold isn’t exactly the sexiest look, but thanks to a combination of an awful lot of makeup and some good old cold fighting on stage adrenaline I managed to battle through without looking too much like death, I think.

Later this month I’ll be hitting the stage in Bath for Club Cadaver on the 22nd and Ministry of Burlesque’s High Tease on the 30th, and debuting my new double act in Hitchin on the 25th, followed by burlesque style Halloween spookiness on Shoreditch on the 31st. After these I’ll be having a nice rested relatively burlesque free November getting my Christmas act ready for December’s shows, so come see me 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

Emily Breen: What performing for BABC means to me

For me performing at the BABC has been a fabulous, uplifting experience (boob pun not entirely intended). It is a celebration of the beauty of survival and of the female form in all her myriad shapes and sizes. I am touched to have been a part of BABC and so looking forward to the next!

Emily Breen is a columnist for Essex magazine The Edge and senior writer for film site HeyUGuys.co.uk. She is currently working on her second novel, How I Fell, seeking representation for her first and writing poems about boobs. The last time Emily read for BABC was the first time she has read in public since she was 14. She liked it so much she is doing it all again at Dirty Dicks in London on October 21st.

The day I helped an old lady escape from a nursing home (a very dark humoured true story)

I was 15 and living in a small town for a while. I was rebelling against something, not quite sure what and needed money to get to Brighton's bright lights and party as much as I possibly could.

Nothing else mattered. Babysitting jobs took up too many evenings and there were no other jobs going in this limited town. A fellow rebellious schoolmate, a punk called Susan, got a part-time job in a local nursing home. She said there was a cleaning job going. That'll do me, I thought. Even though I couldn't stand old people, they were alien to me. They stank of moth balls and lavender and had no teeth and moaned all the time. Never mind, I thought. My job won't be 'involved' with them, I'm just going there to clean...

The nursing home was a large old detached converted house with a little drive up to the main entrance with hedges and trees along the front wall. On my first day I was told to go around the back and never to use the front door again. It didn't have a doorbell anyway because it might 'disturb' the residents. On entering through the back door, I found myself having to walk through the residents dining area, where the first thing that hit me was the smell. An overpowering stench of decaying humans and the weak watery boiled food that was being served to them. Then I noticed heavy drawn curtains, all windows were shut. There was a dark damp ominous feel to the room, even though it was a beautiful warm spring day outside. The residents looked pale, like ghosts with expressions showing they'd lost the will to live a long time ago...

Suddenly, a woman, the Matron who owned and ran this 'House of Fun' appeared! She had steel blue eyes and the most piercing stare I have ever seen. She must have been in her late 60's, thin with sharp features and very long silver hair swept up into a bun. She was from a different era and there seemed something...dare I say it ..Nazi about her.

She thrust a dirty old dustpan and brush into my hands and told me to clean the carpets throughout the house. I asked her where the hoover was, she looked at me like I had just shot someone,

"We do NOT have a hoover or any machinery in this house, the noise disturbs the residents!"

After a good 2 hrs on my knees and another 2hrs wiping old furniture with a damp old ripped up tea towel from the 1970s (she didn't believe in cleaning products), my back and my knees were killing me and I felt quite sick from the dust and the stagnant air. This little cash in hand job wasn't going to be as simple as I thought.

As the weeks wore on, I began to despise this woman. I was only 15 and I didn't really know what a sadist was, until now. One day, I was on my knees dustpan and brushing one of the bedrooms. All of the bedrooms had men and women sharing with no privacy. Right in the middle of the room was a woman crying. She was naked from the waist down sat on a commode,

"Help, help!"

I stood up to help her, then the Matron apeared and shouted,

"Leave her THERE! She HAS to learn!"

Three hrs later I could still hear,

"Help, help..." coming from that room. I peeked in and sure enough she was still sat there on the commode....

Alice, the one with severe dementia, would wander around in her nightie whimpering and cuddling a little rag doll close to her face like a scared child. She wandered into the kitchen one time when two fed-up auxillery nurses were propped up against the sink, arms crossed, sharing a fag. One of them said,

"Oh for christ sake Alice, SHUT-UP!"

The other said,

"We need to wash that doll"

They prized her fingers away from the doll and when her grasp slipped she screamed and screamed. They cracked up laughing, threw it on the floor and said,

"Oh have it then, FETCH!"

Now, when I took the mickey out of old people it was harmless. A generational thing. Just as one or two would take the rise out of my clothes, hairstyle, music etc. But this was something else! I did tell people about it but I'm sure they thought I was making it up. Well, I was a bit hormonal at the time and hardly ever at home, living a life of escapism.

Another character in the 'House of Fun' was The Major. He was quick off the draw, funny as hell and a randy old bugger! I would try to avoid dust pan and brushing with my bottom facing any door because he would come creeping in and 'THWACK!'

He would skip off laughing and I would be left with a smarting buttock, as well as what was now turning into the common victorian condition 'housemaids knee'.

My favourite resident was a lady called April. The reason why all the doors and windows were locked shut at all times was because of this minx. She constantly tried to escape and to be quite honest with you, I couldn't blame her. Now and again, day and night, a distant rattling could be heard. Well, that was April trying all the doors and the windows. Sometimes, she would put her coat on over her nightie and tell you she had to go and meet her husband. She would say (whilst pulling at a locked door to no avail)

"I have to meet my husband now. I'm late, he's waiting. Unlock the door please..."

Her husband died 20 yrs before. My loathing for old people was diminishing.
One day, the home was short staffed so we were all roped in to help serve lunch, which was some grey slush with a pink watery liquid running through it. Someone had burnt something in the kitchen, so for once they had to open a window. This was ground floor, front facing. I was told to go back and lock the kitchen window. When I walked in, there was April, trying to climb out but just too old and frail to succeed.

Something clicked inside my head. This suddenly felt like 'The Great Escape' or 'Papillion' or 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', when a treasured moment of freedom is better than no freedom at all. I said,

"Do you need to see your husband, April?"

"Yes, please"

So, I lifted her gently out of the window and placed her on the front entrance outside. I was a big strong girl, so it didn't take much physical effort. I heard myself saying,

"Run April.... Run like the wind!"

As she shuffled off slowly down the drive, I saw her doing tiny baby steps in her nightie. I then locked the window and returned to the dining area. I felt exhilarated and I knew for sure (wherever distant land she would visit), she did too.

An hour later, she was found at the corner of the road sat on a wall admiring a garden. The next day, back inside, she quietly whispered to me,

"Thank you..." as she toddled off to go and try all the doors and the windows yet again. I left soon after, well walked out in fact after telling the Matron,

"Stick your dustpan and brush where the sun doesn't shine, you old cow!!"

A while later, I discovered that before I'd worked there, the home had been on a BBC complaints programme. There had been many bad reports about the place. The matron had defiantly carried on running it for a few years until she died there. Finally it closed. About bloody time too!

Strange how that job gave me a lesson in life, where my lifes adventures were just beginning.....

Honour Mission is a Brighton based burlesque performer and will be performing for BABC at The Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th. Honour lives at: http://www.myspace.com/honourmission

Photo by Stan Keetley

Beulah Bell '2 Hearts'

My '2 Hearts' show for BABC was inspired by Kylie Minogue and her amazing X album after her battle with breast cancer. I wanted to show strength and hope to anyone who has been affected by cancer and raise awareness for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Beulah Bell performed for Burlesque Against Breast Cancer at the Book Club Boutique at Dick's Bar in Soho earlier this year. For more info, visit: www.myspace.com/missbeulahbell

BABC in London

BABC in Brighton

Ruby Demure of The Flirtinis: What performing for BABC means to me

My grandmother was an impressive figure. Strong, confident and not to be messed with. Wales still has a matriarchal culture and my grandmother was very much in charge of the family. Breast Cancer reduced her to a vulnerable and frail shadow of her former self and eventually it took her away from us when she was only in her early 60s and I was just 9.

It has always felt like a shadow hanging over me, always the silent killer that might be lurking in my genes somewhere. I’ve often thought what a cruel disease it is to take away the very things that define our femininity – our hair, our breasts, and our joire de vivre.

Burlesque is a curious and wonderful thing. I am sure it means many things to many people, but to me it has always been a celebration of all that it means to be female. A celebration of the female form in its many shapes and sizes, of our character, confidence, glamour and humour. It somehow seems a beautiful and entirely appropriate way to support the fight against Breast Cancer and I am privileged to be a part of it.

My grandmother fought it to the end, and the amazing work of charities like Macmillan Cancer Support means that she would probably have survived if she had developed the disease today.

The Flirtinis will be performing for Burlesque Against Breast Cancer at the Ocean Rooms in Brighton on October 16th.