“Can we open the doors?” said the front-of-house girl. “There are forty-five people outside.”
“Did you say four or five?” I said.
“No. Forty-five”
Our first preview. And we had an audience! Despite a brief microphone issue, our 15-minute changeover ran smoothly under the expert leadership of Phoebe, Linda and our venue tech, Emma. Up went the lights and we were on. All ran smoothly and – shock horror – the audience laughed and clapped in all the right places!
We’d been booked for a performance at the Spiegeltent for the Edinburgh Festivals Magazine launch that started 15 minutes after our scheduled show finishing time. Feeling super organised, we’d practiced the walk from one venue to the other the day before. All was well. Until we ran into our friend, Spanky, who manages the Assembly Gardens, and were informed that there are TWO Spiegeltents…and we’d practiced walking to the wrong one. The walk was a good couple of kilometers more than we’d planned for.
We calmly informed the gang that they’d be taxiing not walking to the second performance and continued to flyer out front for our show.
“WannaSeeAnAustralianAllGirlCabaretWeSingSongsByMenAndDanceReallyBadlyIt’sFunny!”
Flyering, we’ve learnt, is about getting as much information about your show out of your mouth as quickly as possible.
I’m not sure whether it was during the speedy cab ride across Edinburgh, or as we ran through the rain, all tutus and flying hair towards the Spiegeltent, but at some point last night, I decided this might just become the best month of my life. The Spiegeltent was already full of drunk artists, crew and press and a woman on stage was plugging her show and singing. Of course, we couldn’t find the organiser or the stage manager (“Things at Edinburgh are…fluid…”, the guy we hired our instruments from had told us). We hung about backstage and then the SM started setting up 6 mismatched mics. Before we knew it we were announced and we pranced onto the stage.
After the speediest rendition of Fat Bottomed Girls we’ve ever sung and our old favourite, You Shook Me All Night Long, we were off the stage again and out into the crowd to be greeted by Virginia Gay, sporting the best yellow dress I’ve ever seen. I think I need to work on my ‘cool factor – “We went to primary school together!” isn’t the best greeting for an Australian cabaret and TV star. But I recovered and we all had a little artisty banter and agreed to see each others’ shows.
The walk home in full tutu was littered with macho wolf-whistles and the odd interested glance, something we’ll have to get used to. Four of us decided that the rock star life was not for us, eschewing booze and burgers to pick up some fancy cheese and crackers at Tesco. You could be forgiven for thinking you were witnessing an orgy from the satisfied moans echoing around the apartment when we got out of our stockings, boots, sweaty bow ties and mammoth hair dos, popping our tired bodies into PJs as quickly as we could before setting up shop in the lounge to eat our feast.
A quick debrief with the whole team and we were ready for bed.
One show down, 24 to go.
