On a teeny tiny stage near you soon!

We're deliciously in demand at the moment. Hot on the heels of our fishnetted appearance at the Angling Club (we're saving the sou'wester routine for a more specialist audience) comes our appearance next week on the bijou stage of Deco 5. We'll be appearing alongside some traditional burlesque acts, some singers, and two of our very own showgirls doing their own thing - can't wait!

Other bookings are coming in as fast as a boa sheds feathers. If we say "yes" to everything, we may have to employ our delicious other halves as roadies, or we'll never see them!

To top it all, we had a triumphant romp last night to the very end of the routine that we're currently doing in class. We had the usual sprinkling of random events. One of our beauties managed to skewer her heel into a gap in the floorboards and  was caught like a butterfly on a pin. This, and the memory of the Sparkly Bra Pixie bellowing "left, now look at it, in, right - don't look at it, now look at it" as we reached our grand finale, made me smile all the way home.

Yours, tickled by the gap between the production process and the finished article,

Burlicious x

Saturday Night's Alright for Dancing

My oh my, what a fabulous night we had at the Angling Club, performing to a full house (standing room only) alongside the delightful Elton Towers!

Yes, the drink spillage on our dance floor did make for a few sudden and rather surprising moves.

Yes, my beautiful pink parasol, having opened smartly through my legs, did then refuse stubbornly to shut so that I then couldn't draw it back through my legs, tidily closed.

Yes, the dressing room was also the kitchen behind the bar, which made for a lot of barmen (how could there have been that many?) popping in and out as we were changing. Our favourite was the guy who informed us that it didn't matter if he came in because he was gay. The credibility of this explanation was rather seriously undermined by him mentioning a few minutes later that his wife was in the audience.

And, yes, despite having Elton's willing help, we didn't exactly manage to get the music to start and stop as precisely as we would normally do.

But, oh, what a lovely, lovely crowd - happy (not just because of the cheap drinks, we think), welcoming, generous with their praise afterwards, and absolutely up for it. As we left the venue, we were treated to a standing ovation - it was Grafty Green all over again! All this, and great music from Elton himself - what's not to like?

A special mention goes to our barman who, at the very end, asked us if we took all shapes and sizes of woman at our class. "Definitely," we said.

"And I suppose you tell them all that they can be sexy no matter what they look like?" he asked. "Abso-bloomin'-lutely," we said.

"That's fantastic," he said. "I love it. All power to you!"

Isn't it great when an utter stranger completely gets what you do!

Yours, happy to do it all over again,

Burlicious x

No quivering lower lips, now!

Remember, showgirls, no dancing this Wednesday - it's half term. 

We're back to gorgeousness on Wednesday 26th February! Hurrah!

Yours, taking the weight off our stilettos,

Burlicious x

PS: Tales from our entertaining escapade at the Angling Club yesterday night will follow soon!

Fishing for compliments

Rehearsals yesterday for our appearance this coming weekend at the Angling Club's Valentine's bash. Interestingly, we found some brand new ways to b*gger up some of our most familiar routines. Truly, our creativity knows no bounds!

Now, what shall we wear to delight the local fisher folk and the lovely Elton John-alike whose second act we'll be opening? The whole mermaid thing looks nice but doesn't really work with heels and we sense potential props disaster if we try to marry enormous 1970's spectacles with boas and headdresses.

And, please, no suggestions about rods.

Sou'wester burlesque, anyone?

Yours, on the crest of a wave,

Burlicious x

Shaking...

... with laughter. Ah, how we love those magical moments when one of the troupe confidently, sassily, b*ggers it up, just as happened last night.

What's lovely about our friendly host of showgirls and our rather informal style is that we are all genuinely tickled when it goes wrong. There's nothing to match that fantastic combination of giving it all you've got, stepping out in style and with great panache, and then having it slowly dawn on you that you're the only one doing what you're doing and that you have gone absolutely, unmistakably, unambiguously....wrong.

Cue laughter; a hurried recovery; and then a battle with irrepressible giggles through the rest of the routine, shoulders shaking all the time.

What a tonic for the soul! We must bottle this and sip it delicately through the rest of the week whenever life is less entertaining.

Yours, giggling now at the memory,

Burlicious x

An enchantment of showgirls

We gave a warm welcome last Wednesday to our new showgirls and to an old, and much loved, routine. It's a sassy little number (I'm talking now about the routine, although the description would apply equally well to our new joiners) and it always makes us feel as if we should be in a saloon bar in a Western, draped over a honky-tonk piano, dressed in little laced-up booties and a froth of short petticoats. It has a delicious, blowsy, "experienced woman about town" feel to it.

Of course, the addition of canes to the routine also gives rise (pun intended) to some lovely comedy moments when things don't go quite to plan.

To be serious here for a minute, it never ceases to amaze us how we can take a scruffy hall, a troupe of dance amateurs and a wide variety of female body shapes; then add some gorgeous outfits, some sexy moves and a lot of laughter; and suddenly we have a group of women all moving in time to the music looking absolutely bloody fabulous both individually and as a whole.

It's magic, that's what it is.

Yours, having our witchy way with female beauty,

Burlicious x