I know it’s been a while, and I sincerely apologise to the two people that I know who actually read this but I’ve been extremely busy, and I hope you can forgive me!
Just to let you know where I am at the moment, it’s a Saturday evening and I’m sat at the kitchen table in a house just outside Crewe, trying to avoid the X-Factor. It’s the end of rehearsal week for my new tour. But more about that later.
So let’s continue from where we left off, sometime in August. Jacc had just got the keys to his new (old nightclub studio) and I was donning my rubber gloves ready for operation clean-up. And what a clean-up it was! We let ourselves into the building in the Wednesday(?) afternoon to find that there was no electricity on. Luckily with it being August it was still daylight, although slightly miserable because of our crappy English weather. We fumbled around in the dark and managed to start finding jobs to do. It was left to myself and Caroline to start getting rid of all of the alcohol that was behind the bar. I don’t know how many hours it took but it felt like days. There was a small sink in the corner of the bar that I was hunched over pouring hundreds of pounds worth of alcopops, beers and spirits down, and I have honestly never felt more sick in my life! It felt like the worst hangover in the world, and we weren’t even consuming any of it! A good deal of it also went over ourselves in the opening of all of the pressurised bottles. Needless to say, as willing as we were to help get everything ready for the launch party (3 days later), we weren’t impressed with the state we went home in that evening.
After that initial afternoon, we went back the next day feeling refreshed and ready for another day’s hard slog. We walked into the main room and immediately, the smell of stale alcohol hit us. We weren’t too worried at the time, the floor was covered in black bin liners full of empty alcohol bottles, and to be honest, I was pretty sure I was adding to the stench from having it all over me the previous day!
I set to work getting rid of the empties, and moved on to the favourite task of many a cleaner (!), toilet cleaning. And what a job is was. I used to be a cleaner at my old secondary school, and toilet cleaning was part of the job, but nothing could have prepared me for what was in store. As many a drunk will know, nightclub toilets are not the most pleasant things in the world, and as this one had been abandoned with everything left inside, it had been left in a state for over a year. The stench was awful, especially as one of the toilets was broken and had no water inside it. But, the gloves were on, I took a deep breath and began winding my arms down the various u-bends. Pleasant!
Later on in the day, the lovely men from Eon came round, and after a few more hours of them running around various towns to find parts that they needed, we had electricity! Jacc walked around the back of the bar to the spot that had been my home the previous day and said the immortal words, “Oh no.”
I didn’t want to know what he had found, but I was pretty convinced that it was something to do with the awful smell that had greeted us that morning. And I wasn’t wrong. It appeared that a considerable amount of the alcohol poured away had made a waste box overflow and the alcohol had gathered on the concrete floor underneath the raised wooden flooring of the bar. Yet again I found myself trying desperately to get rid of alcohol, this time with a mop and bucket and a torch!
We managed to get all of it up, and by the end of the second day, the place was looking a lot better. But there was still a long way to go. Parents of Starlight kids came in to help, and within no time at all, the place was ready for partying the night away! 
I was so proud of Jacc when he was finally able to get up and give his speech to celebrate the opening, and he even gave me a special mention as a thank you. I had worked so hard (as had everybody else) to try and make sure that everything was ready for him for his big moment that I was ridiculously tired, and as soon as he got up onto the stage to begin his speech, I fell to pieces and sobbed into my Starlight t-shirt! I had to pull it together sharpish as we had to perform 2 dances before we were allowed to put our party frocks on and dance into the night!
By the time all the parents and friends had gone and left us to shake our bits, I was so exhausted that I just collapsed onto a sofa and nursed an alcopop for most of the night!
A few nights later, myself and Caroline found ourselves at Jacc and Craig’s house, around a home-made Ouija board! I can’t remember the reason now, but I’m sure it must have had something to do with one of the ridiculous television shows that we find ourselves watching! I don’t really believe in Ouija boards myself but it seemed like a fun idea at the time so we went for it! There were five of us to start with but Mari got too scared as soon as the glass started moving so she ran away! I don’t know who was pushing the glass, everyone denied it, but it moved, and Craig was voted in as the person who would talk to the ‘spirit’!
We ‘found’ a girl called Heidi who had been killed about twenty years ago and her body had never been found. She told us that she didn’t know who had killed her, but whoever it was, they had killed many more people. We assumed that Heidi had been a local girl, so naturally as soon as I got home, I Googled missing girls called Heidi, but nothing came up. Between you and me, I think Jacc pushed it!!
The end of the week brought a lovely meeting at my favourite place for the unemployed, the job centre. I had an extra meeting to attend, for the staff to try and help me in my search for work, as they clearly think people aren’t capable of doing these things on their own. Usually at these meetings, there are about twelve unemployed, or ‘undesirables’ as we like to call them, but on this occasion there were only 4 of us, two of which had jobs coming up and were just sponging free money, and two who were really struggling due to the career that they had chosen. Basically, it was pointless for all of us being there, and there was nowhere to hide. The man in charge had shoulder-length brown greasy hair, and his sidekick was a woman whose bleached blonde hair had been sprayed with so much product, that there was no chance of it moving, even in the toughest of winds! We had to sit in this room for an hour while they preached at us, and tried to tell us how to persue our careers. The only advice I was given was that the Castle Theatre in Wellingborough were looking for volunteers, and that I should email them. So not only was the job unpaid, I would have to spend money on either a bus or petrol getting there! I think not! Their reasoning was that it’s who you know, not what you can do. I almost told them what they could do!! I left in an angry mood, and stormed to the shops for some retail therapy!
It was also around this time that I started to learn some new routines for the show, which was rapidly approaching and an increased speed. I had just started tap and ballet lessons with the new Starlight teacher, Claire, who was also choreographing a routine for a select few people. And I was one of the chosen ones!
The dance was to Annie Lennox’s ‘Love Song For a Vampire’, which meant, yes, I got to be a vampire! I was chuffed! It was a contemporary/ballet routine so I was very concerned that I would look a fool, as I hadn’t done any ballet for approximately 14 years! But Claire was full of encouragement and I was well on my way! There was also a fall-out between Jacc and one of the Principal dancers around the same time, so I found myself thrust into the principals routine, that they had been rehearsing for months! I was relieved to find that I picked it up quite quickly, but I suppose it helped that I had seen it a thousand times before. But with having to learn the routines, make more costumes and start learning lines for my tour, I was getting more and more stressed by the day!
But as if that wasn’t enough, I decided to earn myself some money and took on a part-time cleaning job! The lovely Craig’s sister, Nadine, runs her own cleaning company, so for several hours a week, I found myself in strangers houses cleaning their personal spaces. I didn’t enjoy the first job that I did, the woman whose house it was, was constantly snooping around, looking to see if I was cleaning properly! The cheek! But as more work came in, I found myself enjoying it more and more!
With Starlight going from strength to strength, Jacc was obviously having less time on his hands, only having two free week day evenings free a week. But we decided to make the most of one Wednesday evening by taking a trip out to Northampton. Well, I say ‘we’, it was his spur-of-the-moment idea and I just went along with it! We got back to his house and I had to frantically raid Mari’s wardrobe to try and find something appropriate to wear and we were off! I can’t for the life of me think of the name of the bar that we went to, but he assured me that it was a friendly gay bar and that we would have a lovely time! After all, he’d been there before! So we arrive, and he decides to tell me that it sways more towards being a lesbian bar! As we walked in I got the last laugh, there was a big poster next to the door saying that it was Karaoke night- Jacc hates Karaoke! So we went to the bar and settled down in a cosy dark corner to try and avoid the staring looks of people who didn’t seem to want us to be there. About half an hour into our adventure, Jacc decided that he needed to go to the toilet, leaving me exposed! He arrived back a couple of minutes later with a big grin on his face, I wondered what on earth he’d been up to in there! It turned out that it was a unisex toilet, we definitely weren’t expecting that! Needless to say, I dragged him in there with me when I needed to go later on!
I had a bit of a shock later on in the evening when Jacc announced that he wanted to do karaoke! This is the man who doesn’t like going to the cinema because he thinks people will look at him! But there he was, demanding that we did it, because it was time for us to try new things! We were going to do separate songs, but then we found “I’ll Cover You” from Rent in the book, so we knew we were set! We’d sung it about 4 years previously in a show, so we dusted off our vocal cords and got up on the stage. After a little wobble from me right at the start, we belted it out to the stares of the usual crowds who I don’t think were expecting that from us! And about 5 minutes after duetting, we left the bar! We’d made our mark, it was time to leave! Those are the kinds of nights that I love, new places, new faces and new experiences!
The next day, I spent the day at the studio with Claire, helping her go over routines for the show, and going over her routine until it was cemented into my brain! And then I spent the evening with the always lovely Corinne in Milton Keynes watching the musical ‘Hairspray’ which was our Christmas present to each other last year! I loved the film when it came out a few years ago, and couldn’t wait to see the show, and I wasn’t disappointed. Although I was led to believe that Michael Ball was in it, Tracy’s parents were played by Brian Conley and Les Dennis, and they were fab! I have never laughed so much at the theatre! And I was equally as chuffed at noticing and being able to name some tap moves that they did in one routine thanks to my new lessons!
Before I knew it, September was over, and it was show month!! It kicked off quite nicely when I had an evening out in London with Claire at the Apollo Victoria theatre (where Wicked is currently on), watching a gala show to celebrate the theatre’s 80th birthday. The first half celebrated musicians and singers who had performed there, and the second half was packed full of bits from the musicals that had been put on there. It was such a fabulous night! My personal highlight was Lee Mead singing ‘Paint It Black’, I squealed in sheer delight! Claire thought I was a bit mental but I love him!! I also loved watching the original cast of Starlight Express doing some routines from the show. As I would be doing a routine on skates in a couple of weeks time, I was looking for tips but they were all amazing, and their routines were far more superior to ours! The only downside to my evening, were the two girls in front of me who kept moving about and talking! There’s nothing worse in the theatre!! Although I did feel awful when I saw that one of them was heavily pregnant as we were leaving, oops! They still blocked my view though! The show ran over time by almost an hour, and so we found ourselves racing through London Underground and St Pancras to try and get me on my train home! I had to rip my shoes off on the Tube so that I could run fast enough! I made it with about 3 minutes to spare, so I jumped on the train with songs in my head and my heart bursting out of my chest!
The days rolled by again, and along came Thursday. Jacc had organised for us in the Starlight Express routine in the show to go roller skating! We were all summoned to Jacc and Craig’s as our meeting point. I walked into the lounge with Craig to find that the gerbil cage was on the floor, with no gerbils left inside. One of the cats had managed to get into the room and pull it down. And so began operation gerbil catch! After scurrying around on the floor for a few minutes, we discovered 3 gerbils under the sofa, and so Craig and I ran around the room trying to catch them and herd them back into their cage! It took about half an hour but we did it. There was still a gerbil missing, but we feared the worst and had to leave without it.
We all piled into 2 cars and made our way to Derby (yes, Derby! I know it’s a long way to go!) and off we went! We had such a good night! Most of us got quite good, despite only being there for an hour, but we were all helpless watching Craig, he was terrible! I don’t think he let go of the sides for more than ten seconds! We attempted to do the routine on the beginners rink, but were awful! But I thought at least there would be one comedy routine in the show!
We came back to Kettering and I popped back into Jacc’s for a little bit. Mari had been in the house all evening and said that she had seen gerbil number 4 in the kitchen! Unfortunately due to her phobia of small rodents, she hadn’t caught it, and it was currently underneath the fridge! Operation gerbil catch was back on! We tried dragging the fridge out but it was too big and heavy for us mere performers to pull out, so we had to think of other tactics! I tried poking it with a stick to make it run out but the stick didn’t reach! Eventually we’d managed to pull out the fridge slightly so Jacc made a device out of an egg sheller, one of Craig’s ties and some gerbil food to temp it out! And it worked! The gerbil hopped right into the device and was hoisted up to safety! Success! 4 gerbils, safe back in their slightly damaged house! It was a good evening!
The next thing I knew, it was show week! It absolutely flew past! It went past in a flurry of shopping for last-minute costumes and props, costume fixing, rehearsal cramming, but strangely no arguing or fighting! Despite the madness, everyone seemed ridiculously calm, and by Friday afternoon, everything was sorted and ready to go! I’ve never known that to happen with a Starlight show!
Sadly, disaster had struck one of StarlightKids, they had been pushed over by a blind boy at school(!) and she had broken her leg. Being the kind soul that he is, Jacc bought her some flowers, and we made our way to her house to wish her well. I was instructed to stay in the car while he went into the house so I sat in the car patiently awaiting his return. What I didn’t notice was that he had locked me in, so about two minutes later, the car alarm went off! I tried to make myself as small as possible as their neighbours started popping their heads out of their front doors one by one. But still no sign of Jacc! He didn’t even notice! About fifteen minutes later he returned, and off we went back to the studio for the final rehearsal!
And then it was show day! I couldn’t believe how quickly the summer had shot past, and today was the day that everyone (well, most people!) had been working their arses off for. I was summoned to the studio at 8.30am for costume and props transportation, and to go over routines with Jacc! Despite choreographing the whole show, he had no idea what he was doing in it! As is the norm on show week, he was also panic-earning the lyrics to his solo! A few of us managed to get 3 cars full of everything that needed to go to the theatre and we were on our way. Yet again I was the first person to arrive at the theatre, and found the place locked up! Typical! It didn’t take long for everyone to arrive and then the madness kicked in! The day flew by, all the routines were spaced and rehearsed if necessary and then came the dress rehearsal. It’s safe to say that it was the worst dress rehearsal that I have ever had in my life! I was in most of the numbers in the show and made at least one mistake in everything I was in! Cell Block Tango from Chicago was the worst by far! I mixed up all of my words, got in the wrong place, absolute disaster! I found comfort in the words that I was told as a child; “Bad dress rehearsal, good show”. Well, we would see!
There wasn’t any time to go home in between the dress run and the show so a few of us had a little picnic in the auditorium, before Jacc dropped me a massive bombshell. He had been watching the dress run with his eagle eyes and had told me that the roller skating routine was appalling and unless we rehearsed and made it amazing in the next half an hour, we wouldn’t be going on! I was fuming! As soon as I had found out that I was in the routine, I had made it my mission to get myself some skates, and now that people had been slack and were rubbish on their skates and threatened to ruin it for me, I was livid! I rounded everyone up, got them all on skates on the stage, and rehearsed them all thoroughly for a good 35 minutes! We made some slight alterations to the routine(!) and prayed that Jacc would let us on the stage later on!
As for the show itself, it couldn’t have gone any better for me! I remembered all my Cell Block lyrics in the right order, managed to be in the right place at the right time for everything, and thanks to my team of dressers in my dressing room, had every item of costume ready and waiting and on in plenty of time! (Big thanks to Claire, Pickle, Florence and Paige! x x x x x)
Yet again, the show received a standing ovation and will go down in Starlight history as being, quite frankly, amazing! The day after the show, Craig whisked Jacc away to a spa for the day (and night), amd they had asked me to look after the house. I leaped at the chance to stay with all their lovely animals, and had a fabulous time cleaning their house from top to bottom! I’m not kidding! It was amazing. But just as I was about to finish the kitchen, there was a loud bang. I raced into the lounge to find the gerbil cage on the floor once more and a gerbil in one of the cats mouths! After a few angry shouts and literally lobbing cats out of the room, operation gerbil catch began again! Having completed the training a week before(!), despite being alone, I managed to catch it in a record three minutes, armed only with a duvet and my bare hands! I’m bloody brilliant!
The following week, a few of us from Starlight headed up to the Masque theatre where Starlight had performed our first 3 shows. We went to see the group that I used to belong to perform the musical ‘Disco Inferno’. I’d never heard of it before, but the musical was amazing, I was singing and dancing all the way through and thoroughly enjoyed my evening! So if anyone finds that it’s being done professionally again, point me in the right direction please!!!!
The next day I was back cleaning a house when I received a text message from Eden, one of the boys I would be touring with the next week. I had met him and Marcus (my other new touring boy) a couple of weeks before as we had trekked up to Crewe to edit scripts and put together the workshops that we would be performing. I can’t remember what his message to me said but all of a sudden I got incredibly nervous about the tour, my throat closed up and I felt like I was having a panic attack in the bathroom of some poor woman who hadn’t even met me! I had gone over the scripts and I had desperately tried to learn lines but nothing had been staying in my head. I was absolutely convinced that I was going to get the sack, and with hardly any money in my bank, I started to freak out! Luckily I managed to pull myself together and finish my job and sort myself out, but I spent the next two days in isolation buried under a mound of scripts and watching DVDs of the plays! 
My final Saturday brought with it the Starlight Halloween party at the studio! I was very excited by my costume, I had worked quite hard to create it, and in the end I believe it was a masterpiece! I had decided to go as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, but dead Dorothy to give it that Halloween feel! My reasoning was that the show was over, of course Wizard of Oz themed, and now that the show was over, so was Dorothy! I made my dress myself, and had a couple of props including a headless Toto, a stuffed dog that I bought from a charity shop and decapitated! Everyone made an amazing effort, and a fabulous time was had by all! A few of us stayed over at the studio to watch scary films but I found myself spending that time in the kitchen talking to Georgie about my rubbish career! It was still a great night, and a perfect way to say goodbye.
I was due off on Monday morning so attempted to do some final goodbyes on Sunday evening. Of course, with this being my life, certain things that needn’t be repeated happened and I didn’t get to say goodbye to the people that mean the world to me. I was absolutely devastated, and as I didn’t want to go on tour anyway, it made leaving all the more difficult. Even as I boarded the train on the Monday, I was choking back the tears hoping that the one person I wanted to say goodbye to would be rushing to the platform with a cheeky grin and a big hug but that didn’t happen.
And so with a heavy heart and an even heavier suitcase, I dragged myself onto the train to Crewe ready to begin my next big adventure....
(I would like to point out that the tour is now 4 weeks in, and I have only just finished this blog and found some internet. For this I apologise most profusely. And if you have reached the end of this blog, I also salute you! Congratulations, you win the prize! I shall start my next blog now! See you soon x x x)
Nx
You're such a busy gal, glad you had time to catch up with your blog. I now know where to go when I need a gerbil catching. Baz x
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