Nuns, dresses and rubber gloves…

Sorry for the slow-ness of my update, hopefully there’s enough in this to keep you satisfied. If not... well, tough! Haha!

I’ve had quite a fun few weeks! After the telephones were all finished, I was still feeling creative but didn’t know what to do! So I turned my hand to song parody writing! Admittedly I have only written one, but it’s flippin genius even if I do say so myself! I’m not going to give away what it is that I have written, but I’m going to make a music video to go with it so that’s my next project over the next few weeks! I can’t wait!

Last Sunday was an absolute cracker! I forced myself to get up at 8am(!) to go to the local car boot sale in search of props for the show. Thankfully I was off the alcohol last Saturday so I had a clear head and eagle eyes ready for bargain hunting (unlike this morning!). I was after pewter tankards. Thinking that I wouldn’t find any, or maybe just an odd one, I picked up a handful of useless change and strolled up with a purpose with my parents on my treasure hunt.

For those of you who know Kettering, the car boot sale was at Wicksteed Park, and it was the biggest one I’ve seen there in a long time! I’d already made up my mind that I wouldn’t find any tankards, but walking up the first row and stopping so that my dad could talk to someone he knew, I spied one! 50p! Bargain! I snapped it up and turned around to see where my mum was, and directly opposite there were two more! I had those away too!

Usually when I go to car boot sales with Jacc and Craig after a night out, we stride down the aisles with purpose, focused on the tables and not hanging around longer than we have to. This time I was with my parents who LOVE a bargain more than anyone I know. We were at that car boot sale for two hours!! Two hours in one field! But, I was on fire, we all had our peepers peeled and I came home with a bulging carrier bag of 8 pewter tankards! Thank you very much! Needless to say, everyone was super impressed with my efforts at Friday’s rehearsal!

Back when I was on tour, I got very excited that I had money in my bank account and booked tickets to see Hairspray in September, and for the beginning of August, Ricky Gervais and Sister Act the musical!

So on Tuesday 10^th August, myself and my brother made our way to the NIA in Birmingham to see the mighty Gervais. I filled the car with snacks and drinks despite it only taking an hour, we cranked up the music and we were off! The journey there was easy enough, but once we got to Birmingham, we followed signs for the NIA but couldn’t find anywhere to park... all the car park entrances seemed to be blocked off. However, we persevered and finally got a spot. I made my way over to the car park ticket machine and I managed to annoy the people in the queue behind me by putting in £8 in very loose change! Snigger! And then we were in! I bought an overpriced programme and we settled down in our seats. I’d been to the NIA before to see the lovely Travis(!) but couldn’t really remember what it was like. We weren’t too far away, and we were slightly raised up so we had a perfect view. Rob and I had a little debate about the stage- I said he would have a set, and that I was hoping for a laboratory setting as the show was called ‘Science’, but Rob was adamant that it was going to be a relatively empty stage. I won! It was an amazing set- a laboratory with brains in jars and creepy green lights, perfect! And Ricky was amazing! I won’t bore you with it, and you can always buy the DVD when it comes out!

After getting stuck in the car park waiting to get out for about ten minutes, we finally got out but made a wrong turning and ended up going the wrong way on the motorway! Rob was not impressed. He tried to blame me, but it was his fault for not obeying the sat-nav!! I was too busy texting to pay attention to the road!! Oops!

The next day I woke up feeling very excited! We were off to London to see Sister Act the musical! I’d decided with Caroline that we would go and see it sometime over the summer because we both had the soundtrack to it and loved it, and then during the last week of my tour, she sent me a text message saying that Whoopi Goldberg was actually going to be in it! I dived on the internet to find out any information that I could and sure enough, it was true. I immediately phoned Jacc to see if he wanted to come, and an hour and £100 later, 5 tickets were winging their way to me!

My dad dropped me off at the train station and everyone but Jacc was there. Jacc had been very suspicious a couple of weeks before and said that he was busy in the morning. He wouldn’t tell me why for a while but then told me that he was going to the doctors. I said fair enough, we’ll just go a bit later. 2 minutes before the train was due to depart, he strolls into the station and announces that he’d just had his second driving test! He didn’t pass but he was ok. Little sneak, not telling me!!

The train journey wasn’t very eventful, we got to London, hopped on the tube and found the theatre. We got very excited to see Whoopi’s picture outside and scrambled up the stairs to but yet another overpriced programme, and Caroline bought pretty much every souvenir going!

I absolutely loved the show! Everyone went wild the first couple of times that Whoopi came onto the stage. Sadly she was a little bit flat during her solo (sorry Whoopi!), and the lead girl wasn’t as good as people were making her out to be, and Simon Webbe really needs acting lessons(!), but the music and the staging and everything else was spot on! We were right on the back row, so as soon as everyone had taken their bows, we legged it down the stairs and out onto the street to the stage door. I’d been there before as I’d had an audition at the Palladium last year so I was shouting out directions to Kurt who was sprinting quickly out of my eyesight! We turned the corner to the stage door and immediately found a massive queue of people waiting there already that hadn’t seen the show. Some people opposite us had been waiting since 6am! Fools! The crowd seemed to be full of Americans too... which I thought was a bit odd but hey ho.

To cut a long story short, we waited outside for about 45 minutes but Whoopi didn’t come out. We were gutted. Ian Lavender (whose American accent was pretty ropey too) came out and signed a few bits but ignored Kurt when he tried to get his attention! He was Livid!! We hopped back on the train and that was the end of our day!

The following day a few Starlighters were invited to Starlight Jo’s house for some food while her boyfriend was away. Jacc and Craig were invited but had to pull out at the last minute as they had caught a cold that had been going round Starlight for the last couple of weeks. I had been mocked by Jacc a couple of days before for taking multivitamins every day, but sure enough, the next day he was struck down and here I am running around like a spring lamb having avoided it! Karma!

We skip to the weekend now and I found myself at Jacc’s once again on Sunday evening. Part of the night was spent sorting through his Puppy, Kitty and Pony Surprises(!) – he was sorting out his loft! And then he dragged out a DVD of the second show we did together. This was before our university days so our talent was still very raw and un-nurtured and awful!!!!! I seriously don’t know how we managed to get on our university courses! The second act in the show was us dancing together to Hey Mickey- the Lolly version! I was wearing a tight gold dress, he was wearing a gold shirt and ew both had gold glitter hats on. That was the best bit about it! Later on in the show we would be paired up again, me in a nice stripy dress and him dressed as a rat. Needless to say I felt dirty and ashamed and would like to offer a refund to anyone I know who came to see my appalling efforts. I seriously hope I’ve improved. Cringe!

Last week didn’t bring many days of excitement to be honest! Rehearsals for the show were good, I’m sure I sweated off at least a million calories. Oh, of course. I went bowling with the lovely Lydia and Richard! Despite it being my suggestion to go, and my incredible fighting talk, Lydia and I were both thrashed by Richard and mercilessly mocked. But I had fun!

I had a lovely day on Saturday just gone. I managed to drag myself out of bed at a reasonable hour and made my way to Leicester to meet up with the lovely people that I had done a small tour with last year. I met up with one of them earlier than the rest and we went shopping to find me a new dress (more on that later!). When we joined the others (minus one- Adam, where are you?!!?), we all went for lunch together, caught up on what we had been up to in the last 11 months and had a jolly old time! It was like we had never been away from each other which I thought was quite special considering we weren’t together that long for the show. After some hilarity over a piece of battered fish in cling film, we went our separate ways, and off I came back to Kettering for another slice of fun.

Craig kindly picked me up from the train station and we, along with Jacc and Mari, made our way out for my second meal out of the day(!) and to the cinema to see Piranha 3D! Oh what a film! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry most of the time! But in a strange way it was genius!!

And that pretty much brings us up to date. I’ve hopefully got an exciting afternoon ahead of me...

I’m very pleased and proud to say that Jacc gets the keys to his own studio for Starlight this afternoon!!! He’s had to save a lot of money to lease it, but we finally get in this week! Anyone who knows Kettering- it’s what the nightclub Level 3 used to be. Well, still is! The person who had it as the club just left everything so this afternoon we begin getting everything out, putting our stuff in and cleaning everything! I’m actually quite excited about getting it ready!

The official launch party is this Saturday, which is what my lovely new pink dress is for(!), the mayor of Kettering is coming to open it for us, we’re going to do a little dance display for the guests and then party the night away! Classes start in the studio next week I believe too! Very exciting times!

Once again, I’m very proud of you Jacc, you deserve it all! Right, I’m off to find my rubber gloves!!

See ya,

Nxxx

Don’t call me Gaga…

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks but I have been very crafty! Not in the sneaky sense, but crafty as in making crafts!

I’m not ruining anything by saying that in the next Starlight show ‘Leave That Wizard Alone, 23^rd October at The Lighthouse Theatre, Kettering (Plug over, I promise!), we are dancing to the wonderful Lady Gaga song, ‘Telephone’. I found out when I got back that as part of our costumes for this dance, we were to have a telephone stuck to our heads like the good lady herself!

Obviously we aren’t going to have real telephones due to the weight and ridiculous-ness of the idea, so it was down to me to make some papier mache ones! When this was first mentioned to me, I was very excited, I immediately went home and started thinking up ideas of what to use to make a telephone shape, and sure enough, the very next day, the first telephone was born out of a toilet roll inner, 2 plastic cups, newspaper, and a mountain on PVA glue!

And so, 15 days after my task was set, there are now 35 telephones sat in the corner of my bedroom! For the most part it was quite fun! I looked forward to seeing the toilet roll gradually emptying in the bathroom so that I could steal the inner tube and make another one! And it turned out to be a group effort! I told my mum about it (bad idea!) so off she went around the neighbours to ask them for theirs, I swiped about 5 from Jacc’s house, and my neighbours to the left came around with a bag of twelve on Saturday night! (Come on, you didn’t really think my family could bet through 35 toilet rolls in 15 days did you?!?)

As fun as it was making them, it was then sprung on me that Jacc would like them all to be painted white so that everyone could take one home and decorate them individually! I decided to get the troops in! So on Tuesday this week, myself, Georgie, Kurt and Caroline all sat down in the back garden, munching on Maltesers and M&M’s and getting in an awful state painting newspaper white! But, they are all finished and ready for collection and there’s still 3 months to go before the show, I’m on fire!!

I’ve also managed to get hold of another very important piece of costume, a pair of roller skates! What a mission that was! I’d been looking online to see how much a pair would cost me, but I wasn’t willing to pay £50 for a pair that I’d probably never use again after the show, so I turned to ebay! I’ve never used ebay before, and I’m determined never to use it again! Oh the stress!

I found several pairs of skates in my size that were going quite cheaply, so I was convinced that I would be able to snap up a bargain. Oh no. Every time I bid on a pair, it was a matter of minutes or even seconds that I was cruelly outbid way past the limit I had set for myself. I was convinced that someone was watching me, and if it was a fellow Starlighter, there would be words!

And then last Tuesday, I hit the jackpot! I’d been outbid on every pair of size 8’s that I could find, so then I decided to look for size 9’s. By this point I’d done some research and seen that it was wise to go up a size anyway. And there they were. A beautiful pair of navy blue skates with yellow stripes on the sides, brand new and in the box for £5 plus postage. I had to have them.

This time I decided to wait until the closing minutes before I placed my bid. Annoyingly, someone had put on a higher bid while I was waiting but they were still in my price range. I watched the clock count down from ten minutes to five and then I made my move. At five minutes to go exactly, I tapped in my bid, stuffed my lucky charm down my bra and held my breath. I kept hitting the ‘refresh’ button on my browser to make sure I was still the highest bidder. The seconds kept ticking away, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 20, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... and then it was over. They were mine!!! I actually whooped out loud! A week of sneaky outbidders could not defeat me that day!

Saturday rolled around and there was a loud knock at the front door waking me from my pleasant sleep. I was going to ignore it but then I remembered the skates, and after getting severely tangled up in my dressing gown cord, I threw myself down the stairs just as the postman was putting the ‘Sorry we missed you’ card through the letterbox and snatched them out of his hands!

I couldn’t wait to get to rehearsal on Tuesday to try them out, there’s absolutely nowhere to practice at home so I had to gaze wistfully at them for a few days! While the kids were doing their class downstairs, I made me way to the upper level to try them out. I hadn’t skated for just over a year when I was in Centre Parcs with the lovely Lydia (hello again!), so I was a bit concerned that I’d fall over in front of everyone, but in fact I turned out to be ok!

When it came to practising the routine, I was the only one in my skates, but everyone was suitably impressed, my stopping technique was amazing, but I need to do some serious work on my fast turns!

There’s 3 months to the show, I need to find somewhere to practice or I’ll end up in the orchestra pit, or even on the front row! Surely that’s worth buying a ticket to see!

Nxxx