Life is a cabaret, old chum…
At Christmas, I had told Mum, aged 94, how much I was looking forward to spending my birthday with her on my day off, as luck would have it. Having overheard one of my sisters on the phone getting sympathy at the prospect of turning 60, "Oh, that's terrible, darling, terrible," I threw my own hat into the ring.
"Mum, I'm turning 50 soon. What do you think about that?"
"Well," she said archly, queen of the one-liner, "I suspect you're as smug as a bug in a rug."
As the youngest of six, with a 19-year age gap between my eldest sibling and I, she may have had a point.
In the last conversation I had with Mum, I told her how much I loved her, how enormously thankful, and how I often wished my three could have known the joy of my childhood, waltzing the car along country lanes to Hooked on Classics, accelerating over bridges so my stomach would flip, magically materialising a koala fresco out of watermarks on the kitchen ceiling (caused by overflowing bedroom basin, possibly mine!) ...
"You know, Mum, you really are a tough act to follow."
"Well," she quipped, "good luck!"
She knew exactly. And so, somewhere deeper than I could reach, did I.
So when my birthday arrived I wasn't so smug. It turned out to be the day before Mum's funeral, and never had I felt such a sense of time waiting in the wings. When Valentine's Day came round a couple of days later... well, what good is sitting alone in your room? A sudden flash of to hell with it, life's too short had me searching for circus shows: something to celebrate and live up to my nom de plumage.
The recent brush with circus silks at Flying Fantastic (see previous post) seemed to call for a sparkle of sequins, and the Instagram algorithm gods duly flagged up Cupid's Cabaret at the Phoenix Arts Club. Something about rising from the ashes felt rather apt.
I wondered if I would recognise anyone. The last time I had been there was at the behest of Ade Berry, then Artistic Director of Jacksons Lane, who had introduced me to Alex Walton, the actor in Ade's tour-de-force "From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads" (see Chapter 161 - click here). Ghosts of the past, and Bowie himself not so very far away in spirit. The Phoenix is tucked down the same little Soho side street used in the opening sequence of Harry Potter, secreted in the original haunted dressing rooms where Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier rehearsed Private Lives in 1930. The art deco interior worn to a comfortable gleam, walls lined with signed posters, the parquet floor humming with decades of creative electricity. You feel it the moment you walk in.
I needed that more than I knew.
Pulling out all the stops, I booked a corner table for two near the front for the 5.30pm show, with a side aphrodisiac of bubbles and truffle arancini. I donned a red dress and my trademark golden circus heels decorated with vintage trapeze performers, hopped on the back of my husband's Vespa, and we zoomed into Soho ready for a night of burlesque: to put the burla, the laughter, back into life.
This would be a real drag, and God knows I needed one.
The lights dimmed. The MC sparkled. Michael Twaits scanned the room, appraising the predominantly heterosexual couples, the Russians at the front, the girls primping on selfie mode, the alpha males with bulging biceps, and a burlesque protocol ensued to manage expectations.
"...And we'll have none of that judgey-judgey," he said, eyeballing my husband directly.
That made me laugh. Xav wouldn't. And anyway, I'd already given him the pep talk.
What followed was Wickedly musical mayhem: seductive aerial, scorching fire, cutting edgy comedy from Bunny Boiler, impossible contortion, and that reminder of everything I love about circus and cabaret: the glitter, the ridiculousness, the danger, the skill, the permission to feel too much and laugh anyway. And as for Michael Twaits, beyond the repartee (Queen of the One Liners, encore!) the range of vocals and emotions, soaring, defying gravity, defiant, heart-wrenching, was the sucker punch I hadn't seen coming. In a week when my heart had been ripped out, belting out show tunes somehow flipped the energy round.
After the show, I had the joy of meeting Andromeda Circus, the elven phoenix, el duende, of the evening, and even got to speak a little Spanish, another passion of mine. We were moving our Vespa and he was reparking his bright red shiny Mini ahead of the second show. My own convertible Mini had died a death after nearly 20 years on the last day of the Autumn term, en route to the pub, quite literally smoking.
There was something so vibrant about that fire-engine red mini. Vibes of pure elation. As there were in the speed of riding pillion all the way home through the London night. Never had I felt so alive.
All I had wanted at Christmas was to spend my milestone birthday with Mum. In the end, she ensured I did, as I gave the eulogy in church, next to her. I will be forever grateful to my five siblings for entrusting me with that.
"Lucy always has to have the last word!" Mum would always say.
The show must go on.
