Wow! I am so happy to say that all the effort really paid off! In the run-up to this last show there were a few times when I had to stop and laugh, recognizing that indeed, we are absolutely crazy lunatics to be putting so much effort into a one-off, one-night-only performance: When World’s Collide presents The Devil VS. The Deep Blue Sea.
From walking around the neighborhood stealing stray pieces of wood out of trash piles to making a nganga (aka cauldron), to taking mop heads off poles for spears, to precisely cutting up one just-big-enough dress so that it would cover 5 showgirls in all the right places- from seeing the show you wouldn’t believe me that we actually had a negative budget with which we put it all together for!
Norman and I had a lot of practice in Shanghai making things work out of and for nothing. Often things we needed just didn’t exist in China, or were for export only, but we had to make it work somehow. I used to challenge myself to see just how small a budget I could pull things off for and still make them look like a million bucks. (I joke that if someone gave me a lot of money to put towards costumes and props, I wouldn’t know what to do with it! But that’s just a joke- Damn right I’d know what to do with it! Put myself on a payroll for one!)
I’m getting beside the point. The drama of Thursday night was legendary!
So, for one thing, there was some crazy guy hanging around the club all afternoon. Tall, long white hair, yellow glasses… with really bad logarrhea (Can’t stop talking). Told me he’s aristocracy, that he’s from New England, that he’s had 5 ex-wives (I believe the EX-part), something about motorbikes… blah blah blah. So right before the show he was in the room bothering Norman, who kindly asked him to leave and come back in as a punter, paying ten quid like everyone else. When he put up a fight, Norman said, “That’s it, you’re out. Need you to leave now or I’m calling security.”
So the crazy guy waited an hour, then went around to the police station to tell them that he’d just been ‘assaulted’, so after our opening number we had the cops in the back of the theatre asking to speak with Norman. Not a great scenario considering he’s actually onstage, about to perform a rehearsed speech- the crazy dick had planned the timing just so. Luckily the cops could tell the guy was nuts (It was pretty obvious) and there was CCTV footage that proved Norman didn’t touch the guy, and the cops told Norman they were going to get the guy for wasting police time.
But that was just the beginning!!
Then, right before my bit at the start of the second half- we had just finished the Gazeeka Box, and I had collected all the forms that have people’s movie choices for me to pick one from the box to perform. And there was a relentless heckler in the audience shouting that it was a fix. This is funny, because this act always used to be a fix, but by now I have so many movies in my repetoire, that it honestly could have been one of several I was prepared for. A few, like Flipper, were jokes and I had one-liners ready if they came up. So anyways, Titanic was picked, which is good because it’s one I’d prepared, and I launched right into it. About half way through, a fight has broken out by the bar- full on fight. I hear words exchanged, the sound of a fist hitting flesh, a struggle, bouncers coming in from the back, people getting ejected, more kerfuffle- and meanwhile, I’m trying to keep my own ship from sinking dead in the water right there in front of everyone! 
I kept it up- but to tell you the truth- what was going through my head was, ‘F*%$! That crazy dude came back for Norman, now it’s jumped off, and I wondered if I should stop and acknowledge the fight, since half the people had turned around to see- or what?!
Once the 4 yobboes reached the door, struggling with the bouncers who looked like they could handle these guys in their sleep, I was at the part in my comedic monologue where I depict the movie, Leo, Kate, and all, where I say, ‘Let’s go back to my room and I’ll take off all my clothes and let you draw one of those filthy pictures of me,’ and to get everyone’s attention and eyes back on me, I improvised the line, shouting, “I’m Naked!” It was funny to see everyone’s heads flip right back around to me. I gave it everything I had to give, and by the end I got a standing ovation from several people in the crowd.
We did a lot of firsts this time around- Lobster Showgirls danced ‘Kali’ stylie to the B-52’s Rock Lobster, sung by Benjamin Louche himself. Who knew lobster showgirls would be so damn adorable? (I’m starting to think that every show should have lobster showgirls!) 
We did a Gosney & Kallman classic, where all The London Chinatown Dolls declare “We’re going to the beach Norman!” into the fabulous, truly unique, Beyond the Sea- a very special synchronized swimming act, featuring cameos by Miss Brandy Butters and Benjamin Louche in a very silly swimming costume! (Love the personalized sailor caps with our initials on them!) 
Johnny Electrolux made things spontaneously combust and Kitten von Strumpet levitate!
For the Gazeeka Box, I had the pleasure of choosing 3 people I thought would get a kick out of being up on stage! One was a dear friend who I used to babysit for in NY when he was much younger, believe it or not!
We had two very special guest stars, Marnie Scarlet- who put on a shocking display equipped with sparklers sticking out of her arms in one of the most remarkable rubber costumes I’ve ever seen, and the enormously practiced and talented juggler and all around entertainer, Mat Ricardo. Mat does something I’ve never seen anyone do before- he can take a tablecloth off a full dressed table- and then put it back on again! He really brought the house down!
The highlight of the show for me was our WWC sequence in the second half where we use the whole cast to demonstrate the show’s theme. For the last show, Kings VS Queens, we did a sports show hosted by Don Breedlove, and Tarquin Festerfield (Norman & Benjamin Louche) with Miss Miranda as our ring-girl. The first fight was a dance-strip- off between Marie Antoinette and Cleopatra (to Abba’s Dancing Queen, of course!), followed by a real fight by 2 professional wrestlers playing Freddie Mercury and Elvis Presley! Mercury became the victor when Elvis turned his back to eat a cheeseburger and got a guitar smashed over his head. Then the audience burst into ‘We Will Rock You’ and guitarist Roger Pomphrey came out with the guitar solo- it was mental!
So how do you top that, right?!
For this show, The Devil VS The Deep Blue Sea, we had Miss ‘Thorney Rose” come out as Pirate Queen to tell her tale of “Lust! Voodoo! And the Devil himself!” all taking place in The Bermuda Triangle, to the beat on jungle drums…. The music cuts in, the curtains open to reveal the nganga. The London Chinatown Dolls come out as Blonde Amazons one by one carrying their shields and spears (wearing sexy little jungle girl costumes that I made, which I would like to point out- are particularly filthy, as they have holes on the side around a metal circle that make the illusion they aren’t wearing knickers!… You’re welcome!). Then our Voodoo priestess comes out. She has a magic bag with items to cast a spell with- including our lobster friend, a magical pirate doll that morphs form, a giant doobie, and of course, the Devil’s work itself- a copy of The Daily Mail. As the music changes and Jungle Boogie comes on, the Voodoo priestess works her sex magic, until the removal of her feathery bra and the reveal of real skull pasties (!) is enough to set the spell into motion, when the Devil himself appears out of the nganga! The music stops as the devil gives us an aggravated talking to, exiting the stage. Once he’s left we await words of wisdom for our leader. “Pub?” she says. “Yeah! Pub! Sounds good!” And we exit. 
Miss Thorney Rose explains that we’ve all headed down to The Queen’s Legs to have a sip of that sweet nectar, and we open up again with 11 people, a ship’s mast, tables and chairs- all on our little stage! We go into a full-cast choreographed dance and fight scene to the Sex Pistol’s Friggin’ in the Riggin’, until only 2 remain alive! Arrgh!!
What can I say? We aim high, we aim to please, and I’m very satisfied that we achieved this last Thursday! We are crazy lunatics- but doesn’t that make for a lucky audience? We are planning to come back in the fall…. Taking a break from planning for a bit, as we are starting to get booked for corporate events, since word is getting around that we can take any theme and make a huge splash with it! Watch this space for details on our future shows and gigs! Thanks for reading!
Xxx Miss Amelia Kallman
