Proud Cabaret

Saturday night in Brighton saw us glammed up and out on the town at Brighton's Proud Cabaret for a night of 1920's style decadence, surrounded by burlesque entertainers, saucy waitresses with feather headdresses, circus acts and cocktails.

Proud is located in the old Hanbury Ballroom (the old Sassoon Mausoleum, so we were basically hanging out in a graveyard for the evening) and looks completely innocuous from the outside.  The only sign of what is to come is the understated sign on the wall.

Inside though is an entirely different matter.  The dance floor starts off packed with intimate tables filled with couples, friends, hen nights and work dos.  Above your head is the most extravagant ceiling with a glass ball chandelier.  The entire interior is intended to be reminiscent of the supper clubs of the 1920's and 1930's.

You don't come here for the interior, decadent though it may be.  You come here for the show.  After you are seated at your table the waitresses come to take your drinks order, feathered head bobbing gracefully and soon returns with cocktails.

As the food is served (which was OK but not outstanding and to be honest it is so dark inside that you can't see the food anyway!) the hostess makes her entrance and is truly a formidable presence to be reckoned with.  This is a woman who is certainly not afraid to use each and every one of her natural gifts and talents to entertain the audience.  Her wit is razor sharp and cutting and provides the perfect foil to a crowd that has a tendency to get a little rowdy and raucous. 

Various unsuspecting men are preyed upon during the course of the night and made the butt of her  jokes.  Most of them return the banter with good grace, high on dutch courage and the exhilaration that the environment offers.  She is not just there to exchange clever words with the audience though, she is a performer in her own right and sings and struts around the stage, performing a mixture of Christmas songs and modern classics.

She also introduces the performers, each one with their own unique routine.

Burlesque is well established art form intended to be playful, coquettish and full of humour.  It is incredibly empowering for the women who perform, is recognised as a form of body acceptance and celebration of the female form in every variety and attracts as many female audience members as it does male.  Routines can involve balloons, ribbons, feather fans and all sorts of other accessories.  Costumes are lavish and often tailor made for the individual artist.  Performances do involve an element of strip tease but the artists never reveal everything.

The women exude confidence and personality and each has a very different 'flavour' to their performance.

There were three performers in total although one of the women moved so quickly the photos of her are nothing but a blur! Each girl performed twice with full costume changes between.

There was the routine where the artist unwrapped herself like a Christmas present and her second routine as a drum majorette*. 

Then there was Chi Chi Revolver, a woman born and raised in the circus and a marvel with a hula-hoop (she holds a world record which involved hula-hooping upside down).

She performs dance routines, spins L.E.D hoops around herself and even manages a strip tease whilst keeping a hoop in motion around her body.  Her finale involves 40 hoops spinning constantly.

The act is jaw dropping and I would now quite like a hula hoop in my Christmas stocking please Santa!

After the show everyone is invited onto the stage to do the Time Warp with the wait staff.  The dance floor is cleared of tables and chairs, the lights dim, the DJ comes onto the stage and the dance hall turns into a nightclub.  The music mix was odd to say the least with very little continuity or flow but by this stage the audience was so energised and excited by the night of entertainment that they have already had that they just didn't care.

The floor was packed, the bar was buzzing and we eventually slipped away just after midnight with weary feet to head back to the hotel.  As an experience, the Proud Cabaret Club is certainly one to be remembered!
* Photo's were allowed on this night and all photo's pictured are similar to ones available on the performers own websites. 

Burlesque in a Speigeltent

I'm not normally one to go out and play on a school night but there are some things you just can't say no to.

We are bang smack in the middle of the Canterbury Festival and its companion, the Fringe Festival, a fortnight of arts and entertainment events and activities in various venues all over the City.  Sinead is performing in one of the shows this week (Daddy's Girls, presented by Ashcan, at the Salt Restaurant) and we have all been rehearsing our socks off ready for next's week production of Wyrd Sisters.

We needed a girls night out to let our hair down and hitch our skirts up and Shay had exactly the right event for us.

Gilded Lily's Variety Show at the Speigeltent.

Now I don't know about you but I have never been to a Speigeltent before so didn't really know what to expect.  I was picturing a fairly basic marquee, white canvas walls and maybe a nice lantern hanging from the centre.

As we were dropped off at the Kent Cricket Ground I wasn't expecting this

A 1900's mirrored travelling dance hall, reminiscent of the wild bohemia and wanton fin-de-siècle of the Moulin Rouge era nightlife.  The hall took our breath away.

Inside was a riot of circus colours, rich fabrics and deep woods all inlaid with mirrors reflecting and refracting the light around the interior.  Framing the entrance were etched glass panels featuring intricate, delicate designs and a very popular bar featuring not so intricate and delicate alcohol.

Booths littered the perimeter whilst wooden chairs formed an audience in the large auditorium in the centre.

We had dressed up for the occasion; we felt that we didn't often get the opportunity to go all out and so the hats, petticoats, corsets and elbow length gloves all came out to play.  I think we caused a bit of a stir - as a group we were by far the most dressed up bunch there but it was such good fun to really go for it!

Also, I'm going to apologise for the quality of some of the photo's,  Light levels were really bad and rather purple as well as a decent amount of stage smoke and we weren't allowed any flash photography which all combines to rather pink, grainy, sometimes a bit blurry photo's.  Sorry!

I have never worn this corset before; it is so beautiful though and just look at the workmanship and detail on it.  It is a vintage corset, handed down from my mother and I have always wanted an excuse to wear it out. It was also surprisingly comfortable!  I teamed it with a petticoat that I normally wear under my 50's dresses and a lacey skirt over the top with Victorian heeled booties.  It was a look I have never tried before but one that is so much fun to wear and also attracts a lot of attention!

None of the girls disappointed with their outfits, although I think we all felt much more comfortable en-masse than we did individually!

We grabbed some bottles of wine, grabbed some seats and settled in for the show as the compare came onto the stage to introduce the hostess.

Gilded Lily was our hostess for the evening, a singer and performer with a saucy attitude and a sassy wink, she was wonderful.  She came on in lavish costumes and had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand with her catchphrase of 'Did you like that?  Of course you did, I know you did my darlings!'

She sang four songs I think in total, including one in French (no idea, never heard it before).  Her voice is beautiful with an operatic quality and a rolling timbre to it.  This girl has a serious set of pipes on her!

I don't have many pictures as it's not really right to try and photograph someone in the middle of a burlesque routine, but we were treated to three performances, one involving a balloon routine, one with giant fans and one with a feather boa.  All three were stunning.  I've never been to a burlesque show before but I'm really tempted to look up some more in our area!

This was a variety show so we also had some magicians who were screamingly funny, a very flexible female comedian and my favourite, The Boy With Tape Over His Mouth, a simple concept but so effective.  Having your mouth obscured means you rely totally on your body and your eyes to convey humour and we were in stitches.  Amazingly talented and if you get the chance to see him please take advantage of it!

He even managed to get one member of the audience performing his own strip tease on the stage to 'Leave Your Hat On'.  Kudos to you Sir, that took guts!

This night was an absolute scream and such a fantastic event to go to with a group of your girlfriends.  I know that the Canterbury Festival are fundraising to bring the Speigeltent back again next year.  I only hope that they manage it.