MI’s first burlesque: “The Red Shoes” at Hot Muffins!
It was a baking hot evening on Sunday as we headed out to Reading for another night of Hot Muffins! burlesque at the Oakford Social Club. In the dressing room, we bemoaned the heat and tried to apply makeup before it melted. Our hostess Beatrix von Bourbon was running around wearing a sweet peachy pink prom dress and crinoline petticoat with 1950s geek chic glasses.
After helping fellow newcomer Bette Noire (and isn’t that a quintessentially double-edged burlesque name?) into a pink corset and frilly frock that made me think of Little Bo Peep, I headed downstairs to practice biting the heads off roses, and wait for the start of the show.
Bette performed a cheeky cheesecake striptease, with the emphasis firmly on the “tease”. I can see why her popularity is growing rapidly in her home town of Portsmouth, and I’m hoping to work with her again sometime – a double act at HMS Pin Up, perhaps?
The charmingly offbeat boylesque British Heart won me over straight away by riding onto the stage on a scooter, and using the Spongebob Squarepants theme tune in his act. His squid-costumed performance art was a striptease with audience interaction and whimsical spoken word scattered throughout.
I didn’t get to see perfect pint-sized burlesque beauty Missy Malone perform, as it was time to run upstairs and get myself ready to face the crowd. I was paranoid that the eyelash glue holding my pasties on my nipples would fail and leave me uncovered on the stage (I’d seen it happen to Agent Lynch two months earlier). British Heart offered me some of his double-sided tape, but I decided to try the eyelash glue. If it failed me, I’d have to learn by trial & error. Missy came backstage glowing from her performance, and reassured me that if I lost a pastie I could just peel the other one off to match and cary on – the audience would hardly complain!
I then suffered the peculiar pleasure of being laced into my corset by Dolores Delight, a stunning velvet-voiced cabaret crooner whose makeup is the most perfect I have ever seen up close. I’d watched her singing “Whatever Lola Wants” during the soundcheck, and been taken aback by her porcelain looks and her amazingly pure-yet-smoky voice.
I was so nervous, I could barely breathe. Handing my props to Beatrix, I stood by the stage and waited to face my triumph/doom. I had coreographed a burlesque tribute to “The Red Shoes”, using both the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and the Marilyn Manson versions of “I Put A Spell On You” in the soundtrack.
Machiavelli Id in "The Red Shoes", 28/06/2009. Photo by Yvette Ceaton.
I was so terrified as I pirouetted around the sparkling red shoes that my legs shook, and my fingers fumbled with the silver buckles as I fastened the shoes on my feet. The music was the only thing I had to hold on to: I knew this song, I knew what to do, I just had to forget that this time I was being watched by a paying audience. A minute later I was biting off my gloves with gusto, my nerves melted away by the heat, the music, and the encouraging applause.
Machiavelli Id in "The Red Shoes", 28/06/2009. Photo by Yvette Ceaton.
And yes, one of my pasties did fall off. I survived. You can watch a short video clip of the end of my performance here.
I was too stunned to take in the rest of the night. Bette Noire brought me a dark rum & diet coke to cool myself down, and we chatted with our friends in the garden. Dolores handed me a shot of Sambuca. Everything’s a bit of a blur. But I know I was happy. And I will be planning more burlesque performances in a couple of months’ time…
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