Naked Boys and Monkey Business
Today, I have a much-needed day off. Of sorts, anyway. I'm still performing tonight with the Naked Boys, but I have my day free, which is a real luxury, of late, I can tell you!
A couple of weeks ago, it was the first ever performance of my new Cabaret venture, Brother Act. Along with Ian Knauer, who played the Eldest Magician in Just So with me last Christmas, and his husband, Jem Powell, who set up the current run of NBS as Associate Musical Director, I've been spending the best part of this year working on the project, and it fianlly culminated in our very first gig at the Pheasantry on the King's Road in Chelsea. The eagle-eyed among you will recognize the name of the venue, and you would be right to, as it's actually the third time this year that I have performed there. Having never really entered the Cabaret world before this year, I'm now something of a regular, it would appear.
Back in April, I did a slot there with my good friend Matt Harrop (soon to launch his new blog at matt-harrop.blogspot.com), and in September, I appeared as a guest with Julie Clare, whose cabaret I also directed.
The whole Brother Act thing came about in January this year, when Ian, Jem and I took part in a showcase presentation of a musical called Notre Dame, written by another friend of mine, John Wallace. We were singing in the ensemble, and had been given some monks' habits to wear for the performance. Well, we're all very juvenile, and can't ever act grown up for very long, so in no time at all, we were taking pictures of ourselves in silly poses. It was Jem who looked at one of the pictures on the little camera screen, and said, "We look like we're doing some crazy-assed monk cabaret!" It was like a little lightbulb went on in each of our heads, and we all agreed that we should in fact be doing some crazy-assed monk cabaret. Brother Act was born.
Since then, we've been meeting up as often as other commitments will allow, and having a thoroughy splendid time doing it too! We've been frantically writing lyrics to well-known songs, coming up with new arrangements, and even some brand new, original material, so it's a very mixed bag.
It's all very well us amusing ourselves in a bedroon in North London, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what we were coming up with would be any good though! We needed an audience. We needed to know whether or not the material was funny. Whether it was good. Whether an audience would like the characters of our monks. All this could only be sorted out in front of an audience, and preferably one where at least some of the people there didn't know us. It's one thing to have a crowd of your friends being kind, and telling you that you are wonderful, but sometimes, a response from people who don't have any idea who you are can be a lot more honest, and that's exactly what we wanted.
So I approached Paul L Martin who runs Cabaret Confidential at the Pheasantry. He seemed to like the sound of our act, and we were booked in for the 13th of October. This also meant we had a definite deadline to work towards, which was good for us too, as otherwise, we might have just bimbled along, rehearsing for years, but never finalizing anything!
Running up to the event, we had to get costumes sorted out. We wanted to have monks' habits that were exactly what people think of when they think of monks. I know that sounds obvious, but it was actually harder than we thought it would be to find anything like that. We trawled the internet for fancy dress costumes, but they all looked realy cheap and tacky. We wanted something that looked real.
Eventually we decided to bite the bullet, and invest in some really good ones. We enlisted the talents of designer extraordinaire, Geri Spencer, and she got to work. It seemes that there just isn't any call for heavy woollen-looking fabric in a deep shade of brown! We ended up having to get some dyed specially to the right colour, and couriered down from somewhere in Tyneside!
So the day of the cabaret arrived. I was really looking forward to it. I knew that we had rehearsed our 20-minute slot really well, and I was confident that it would all go well. We tried on the habits during our sound check, and they were just perfect. Geri had done an amazing job, and we looked just right.
It dawned on me at that point that the genius of us being up there as three monks, is that we can say anything at all, no matter how smutty, and through the wide-eyed innocence of these simple characters, it all comes out with a charm that makes absolutely anything funny. A winning formula, I think!
The show went really well. We were the 4th act on that evening. First up, a young lady called Melody-Jane , who treated us to some classic songs, American Songbook-stylee. She was followed by a newcomer to the cabaret scenne, Vicky Mason, who took us through some more well-known songs from the musical canon, with a great deal of quirky personality shining through.
After the interval, along came Helena Gostosa, a drag act who played the piano, and sang filthy songs that she had written herself. I was a bit worried about my mum being in the audience, but apparently, she enjoyed the sing-along chorus of "Golden Rain" as much as anyone!
Then it was us.
It was over in a flash! It all happened so fast. I wish we'd had a lot longer. It was so much fun for us to actually get all this material in front of an appreciative crowd. They certainly seemed to enjoy themselves, and the laughter in the room nearly raised the roof! We couldn't have asked for a better response than that. It was extremely encouraging.
I'm delighted to say that the evening was filmed - although not on the highest-quality cameras - and i've edited together a little highlights video, so you can see for yourselves what I've been banging on about!
We'll be reconvening in the New Year, when panto season is just a memory for another year, so keep your eyes open for information about where and when we'll be performing. You can follow the Brothers on Twitter (@BrotherAct), or go straight to the website, www.brotheract.co.uk, and sign up for the free newsletter. You can even search for us on Facebook!
Things are going to be busy for me during November with Naked Boys Singing too. I've just come home from outr last show with a full company before we break for Christmas, and who knows: we're not resuming until the middle of March because of other commitments in the theatre, so it might be the last show ever with this current cast!
That would be such a shame, because the show is in such good shape at the moment, and we all get on so well with each other. It would be a terrible pity if we can't all carry on working together next year, but on the other hand, if we can't, it would be because someone had got themselves a lovely job doing something else, which would essentially be a good thing, right?
I will be running around like a mad thing during November though, as we have various boys leaving throughout the month to go to do various pantomimes. Each week, it seems, another boy will leave, and I'll have to somehow add another boy's show to what I'll have to do that night! It will mean a bit of chopping and changing, but we'll keep calm, and carry on, as the slogan for this year seems to have been,
It also means that I will get to do the one track in the show that I have yet to perform, and then I'll have performed the entire show, including Kris Look What You've Missed, the song that is no longer in the line-up! Perhaps, one day, I'll do the entire show as a one-man cabaret...?
Last week, we all got together to do a Naked photo shoot for Gay Times Magazine. The mag is doing a naked issue, to raise awareness for Elton John's AIDS foundation, so it's for a cause that I really support, and would love to be able to more to help.
We all met up at the W Hotel in Leicester Square. That's the new building on the site of the old Swiss Centre. (incidentally, I was delighted to see that they are re-instating the old Glockenspiel from the original building just outside where it used to play its off-kilter tunes every half hour for the tourists to admire)
If you haven't been to the W, it''s a bit of an eye opener, I can tell you!
It's very dark inside, and all the corridors are very mutedly lit. There are a lot of glitter balls hung everywhere, and the numbers on the doors are all made of shiny sequin-like studs. Very camp, and swish, but a bit try-hard to be honest!
The suite where the shoot took place was enormous!
In the middle of the living room area, there was a massive circular podium, about a foot high, with a built-in circular sofa round the outside of it, that could easily have sat fifteen people on it. The podium rotates slowly , taking the sofa and its occupants with it. All very swanky, and a bit vomit-inducing!
The bedroom is filled with a huge queen-sized bed, and features a fully mirrored ceiling!
That's where we did the shoot, on the bed. It was hilarious. Firstly though, we had to go to make up, and have a few strokes of powder smeared across our faces, and we were told we had to wear a cocksock.
"A what, now?" we said.
"A cocksock."
We were each given a little black trainer sock, into which we had to insert out genitals! I kid you not! We were told at first that it was to make us feel less naked, but I think they soon realised that we, as a group, certainly didn't have a problem with that! It turns out, that it makes airbrushing out any stray peeps of penis a lot easier, if it's a plain black colour. Fair enough.
We looked ridiculous, and they caused much mirth, but the cocksocks were duly worn.
I think the team doing the shoot were delighted with our free-and easy attitude towards the nakedness. It seems that some of the other groups they had been photographing had been a bit nervous, and perhaps a bit shy of getting their kit off for the cameras, but of course, to us it was second nature, and we just got on with it. One of the set-ups was us all lying on the massive bed, in different directions, draped across each other. We had no problem with that at all, as we are all very close, and totally used to being naked with each other, and in public, but I can imagine that it might have caused some issues for other people. To be honest, I think the photographers were a little bit taken aback at just how commonplace we found the whole experience.
it's been very interesting to watch this cast of Naked Boys grow and change, and watch their attitudes to the nudity change as well, during the course of the contract this year. To begin with, some of the newbies were very unsure of it all, and not very comfortable with any of it. Understandably so, too. Nudity still a big deal in our society, although logically, it shouldn't be, as nakedness is, after all, our most natural state.
On day three of rehearsals, back in March, we had to do a photoshoot to promote the show. This was at a time when the boys didn't know each other well, and had never taken their clothes off in front of each other before. It was also done with a female photographer, which adds another level to the whole thing. Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does.
I think you can see their discomfiture in the resulting photos, and I know, without naming names, that there were some tears that night when some of the boys got home.
Cut to...
Eight Naked Boys lying on a bed in the middle of town, howling with laughter, and making the photographers blush with smutty jokes, and being totally at ease with everything that was going on.
It's fascinating to see how being in this show changes people's boundaries, with each other, yes, but also with wider issues. It brings us very much closer together as a team too. I've spoken about this to the cast of the New York production, and they are very much the same as we are.
Sometimes that translates into behaviour that outsiders might find a bit odd, or think goes a bit too far, but actually, it's great to be open and free with people who you love and trust, and don't need to worry about what they are thinking of you all the time.
How refreshing it would be, if we could all be like that all the time?
What am I saying? I AM like that all the time!
And with that in mind, I will be very sad indeed if this tight-knit group of Boys, gay and straight, young and... erm.. not-so-young gets split up any time soon.
So this is me, signing off.
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