We’re officially 2 years old!  Anyone who has organised a 2 year olds birthday party will tell you: “Expect the unexpected”.  It makes more business sense for us to kid on the night went really smooth but where’s the fun in that.  If an episode of Eastenders didn’t have a disaster or 2 in it then everyone would watch Hollyoaks so here’s some of our Drama from the evening so you can get the inside scoop and also see just how hard we work to keep it all together.

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So the run up to this show was a scary one.  Being the birthday show I really wanted to make sure it was a strong line-up and booked some cracking acts.  All comedians were headline acts and all the dancers are headline acts when they perform on bills…plus I’ve been known to headline a few shows over the years myself.

However as things work out this show was full of disasters:

Tickets – Last month on the Monday before the show we had sold 94 tickets.  This month we had sold 8.   As it turns out there was another wee gig on called Rockness and there were 4 other shows on like ours that night plus all the comedy clubs around as well.  On top of that…it’s sunny and people like to be in the garden when it’s sunny.  This by the way is why Scotland has produced so many world class comedians and so few footballers in recent decades.   Also, the despite putting up 20 posters in The Admiral we never sold a ticket at the venue…mainly because the tickets got lost – doh!

Staff:

• Stu Who There was a mix-up about timings so Stu was going to have to do the middle spot to allow him to headline elsewhere  sorry for any confusion.
• My regular door girl Mel has been taking burlesque lessons and was making her debut over at another night
• my Event Manager, Star, was away Graduating.
• Mhairi my assistant manager at 5:20 on the day of Enterteasement txt me to say she wasn’t going to be able to make it – awch.
• Wullie the photographer who helps me set-up getting help up (not by gun)at a previous engagement  so he wasn’t able to help out with the setting up of curtains banners etc.
• Gavin Webster got slightly lost and didn’t appear till the start of the show.

Believe it or not there’s a lot more but I’ll leave it there for now.
So with the room assembled…I’m gonna be honest…I used cello tape to assemble a few things that don’t normally require cello tape.

The Show

We started at 8:02 and the audience were pretty cool, we had a mad man down the front with 4 teeth and spoke a variation of Glaswegian Klingon so that’s always interesting.  We went over the rules, don’t talk during the acts and cheer through the burlesque.  Now while I’m doing this I’m thinking to myself, “Woody you’ve forgotten something really important” and I had – see normally at this point I introduce my team of 2 assistants and photographer so everyone knows we actually work there.  However, as I didn’t have any staff and there wasn’t a photographer at this point there was no one to introduce.

Viv Gee

The comedy world is full off all different types of people but Viv is just amazingly nice and she’s an exceptional compere.  About a month ago I was at a gig and viv was compering for 15 year olds and she ended up breakdancing on stage!  Comedian, Actress, Poet & breakdancer – god knows what else she can do but 1 thing we need for our shows is adaptability.  People turn up for the comedy, magic, burlesque and others have quite clearly there to hide from the police for a few hours…we get a mixed bag but it keeps it interesting.

So Viv did an AMAZING job in my honest opinion because it’s a job where you need to judge the crowd, think on your feet and adjust the timings on the night.  So the show had started and she was off.  It was her birthday the next day and the amount of comments I had about Viv was great mainly from a bunch of my friends who came to the show who have been saying for years “Female Comedians Aren’t funny” But after the event they were converted and want to know where they can see more of her.  Well done Viv.

Gavin Webster

Gavin is a comedian from Newcastle and he’s one of my all time favourites.  One of my friends actually turned up just to see Gavin perform.  In the comedy world, Gavin has one of the loveliest reputations.  Virtually every comedian I spoke to who had worked with Gavin insisted on telling me there “Gavin Story” So I was all glad to have him.

It was weird though because he went on stage and not everyone took to him at first.  Which I thought was strange because Gavin Headlines all the big venues and I would consider him a real 5 star performer.  He wasn’t dying or anything like that but he wasn’t tearing the roof off the place as I thought he would.  Sometimes you just get a quiet comedy crowd…however, I think Gavin sensed that the audience were still a little cold and told jokes at the start as I’ve seen fellow Newcastle comedian Peter Kay do the same thing.  So after 5 minutes, they were laughing after 10 minutes he had them and by the end of it he had them all holding their sides at his panda tale.

Then the weirdest thing happend.  As Gavin does his sign off and say’s “right guys I’m going to go now.”  Our local mad man says, “See before you go pal can I ask you a question?” A rather perplexed Gavin said “yes” and the guy asked him “What’s your real voice?”

What does that even mean?

So Gavin did another couple of minutes off the cuff about being from Surrey; but, it’s one of those lines that will probably end up in Gavin’s Book under the weirdest thing said to you at a comedy gig section.

Break

As breaks go…it was ok.

Viv came back on and I would love to say what she did but I was in the changing room getting stage instructions at the time so I only managed to hear the laughs.

Stu Who
Stu Was meant to be the headliner but due to a mix up with another venue it made sense to move him to the middle spot.  As performances go he was epic.  Right up our street with a mixture of Glasgow stories and personal life.  It’s not one liner gags it’s just normal pub humour and observations.  From start to finish it was Boom, Laugh Boom Laugh.  Knock out blows to the audience and they loved every minute of it.  The energy in the room was epic – we just wish we had him for longer but fear not people – he had a good time and will be making a return when we return.

Suraya Ahmed

Suraya is a the first belly dancer we’ve had on our line-up.  She came on stage and performed her routine using a stick…what’s ironic about this is that she ended up needing the stick as she went over on her ankle as she took to the stage.  No one in the audience would have known this as she continued regardless but by the time she was backstage she was in considerable pain.  I’ve packed painkillers in the box just in case something like this happened but when Suraya came off stage she asked for…tiger bam.  Funnily enough…we didn’t have any.    Cracking act though and something to keep the night different for the regulars.

Cherryfox

Cherryfox is the second pink haired burlesque act we’ve had in as many shows…believe it or not they are both English and they are the only 2 burlesque acts in the world I know of with pink hair so having them back to back is quite something.  Cherryfox  took to the stage to perform a ‘Sing & Fling’ act.  If you don’t know what this is, she sings…and flings her clothes off.  It’s pretty cool and something we’ve been after for a while but hardly anyone does it because it’s pretty difficult.   Anyhow, we had a minor fault with this in that after our sound check was done a DJ monitor was plugged in so this created some feedback during the high notes.  I’ll be honest – I don’t know what that is but we’ve never had problems before with music in there and we’ve tracked down the cause by the end of the show.

So we owe Cherryfox an apology for not getting this right but most of it was fine and it was well received by the audience…also it helps that she’s stunning.

Vendetta Vain

We love her! Vendetta has her own style when it comes to burlesque and has amazing stage presence.  She’s never officially studied drama or anything like that however here’s a wee bit of theatre trivia you can throw into conversation when your posh friends are visiting.  All theatre goers don’t know when to applaud.  What should happen at the end of a performance is that it should be so powerful that the audience sit in appreciation for a while to let it absorb than after 10 seconds or so everyone should start clapping. What actually happens is that as soon as it’s over everyone starts clapping instantaneously.  The only reason I say this is that Vendetta’s performances remind me of theatre performances and at the end of a performance she stands motionless just letting the audience absorb what they’ve just seen.  Which really is nice to see because so many girls run off stage once the performance is over

This month she performed her Russian act for us which came with the weirdest music I think we’ve ever heard.  It’s not really an Enterteasement cheeky teasy fun burlesque act but as Cherryfox was performing a dark number we went for the Russian act as it was a good transition

At the end of the performance the audience erupted with one of our best burlesque reactions of all time.

Great act!  Unbelievable reaction from a World Class Performer.

Thanks for coming back to Scotland Vendetta

Break

Woody

Right It’s my gig and I’m writing about how I did so this is a tough one.  I’ve performed most of the things that I do in my normal act at Enterteasement and as we had a lot of people coming to this show that have seen me over the years I decided to do something none of them had seen me do before.

Apart from being a magician and Enterteasement organiser I also make a few pennies here and there playing poker.  I qualified for a tournament last year with 180 players and I managed to win the tournament and I got a nice trophy and everything.  People often ask me if I cheat and the honest answer is no.  I was only allowed to deal one hand in the tournament I won and as I quite like all my fingers on my hand I think I’ll continue to play by the rules.  However, I do have a few advantages in that I study the key elements of becoming a good poker player and this is a show I am putting together called “I wouldn’t want to play cards with you”.   On Saturday I displayed the ability of reading people’s reactions with my attraction game.  The girl Nina looked through some famous faces and I asked her to memorise and rate who she wanted the most.  I know this sounds like a bit of a weak tie in but the reality is true.  When a beautiful woman walks into the room a man’s heart rate will increase, the pupils will dilate, the speech rate will change and it’s exactly the same when someone looks down at a good hand  The end of my trick was a comedy one where it was a photo of me and it got a good reaction.

Next I performed my Truth or Lie game where I got 5 audience members on stage and asked them all a question.  The holders of the white ball were to tell me a lie and the holder of the black ball was to tell me the truth.   Luckily for me I managed to figure who was telling the truth and who was telling porky pies.

Poker chip

I have 2 favourite magicians.  One from France and one from America.  Both have routines with poker chips and I’m happy to say I’ve combined them both and managed for the first time I put the poker chip on my unsuspecting volunteers shoulder 3 times without him noticing plus I put on it the back of his hand so I’m happy with that.

Next up with the ability to move cards.  And I performed a classic in magic and managed to get 3 cards into a spectator’s hands.  This trick was recently performed on TV and the magician done it via jumping from car to car.  I upped the stakes by doing it with a Glaswegian mad man who decided to come on stage and nearly rip my headset out of my head whilst trying to give me a hug.  But again it went well.

Overall – I’m quite happy with my performance, there was a lot of new stuff in there and I was a tad stressed out but I got through it.

Overall thoughts…I’m delighted to have a month off.  The last 5 shows have been really good fun and the word is spreading about Enterteasement.  It’s known in the comedy & magic world as a really good gig and the burlesque reactions this year have been far better than the last 2 years so we’re heading in the right direction.

If August – December as as good as February to June then I’ll be happy…but I’m aiming to make this even better.  Thanks for reading, remember to like the page www.facebook.com/enterteasement.

Big thanks to

StuWho: http://www.facebook.com/stuwho?

Gavin Webster: http://www.gavinwebster.co.uk/

Viv Gee: http://www.facebook.com/viv.gee
Surya Ahmed: http://www.facebook.com/suraya.ahmed

Vendetta Vain: http://www.facebook.com/VendettaVain

Cherryfox: http://www.facebook.com/TheCherryfox

Woody the magician: http://www.facebook.com/woodythemagician

We’re back in August – December on the Second Saturday of the month.  We’d ask you to pop your name into the newsletter and we’ll let you know when we’re back.

Well that’s another Enterteasement been and gone and I think that was our busiest show ever.   People keep telling us we have to move to a bigger venue or get more chairs.  As The Admiral is just about perfect for us and they have a nice friendly team in place all I can say is that we shall try to source more chairs from somewhere and maybe contemplate opening another night and run twice monthly.  Believe it or not each of those stackable chairs are £60 each – so 10 chairs is £600 which is a little out of our budget.  We have actually purchased 10 extra chairs but accept we need more and will do our best to source them.  For all those that stood – thanks you guys did great and we appreciate that must’ve been a long night on your feet.

The Story

No speeding tickets this month but my printer & laptop were nearly thrown out the window before the show.  However both pulled their act together proving I’m either very lucky…or Artificial Intelligence has taken off.   After getting the venue set up I inform Star (Stage manager) that she’ll be rolling Stakatto Blue’s Hoops on stage, her face was priceless, she responded with, “I can’t toss a coin, can you get someone else to do it?” But I said no and she reluctantly agreed.  First time in a year I’ve seen her panic about something.

Doors Open

Due to IT issues, we were a couple of minutes late on opening but the venue filled up quickly which is always a relief as although we had sold out, there’s still that panic there will be a problem with the trains and nobody will arrive.

As we were mobbed I was a bit a little nervous that conversations would break out and disrupt the night; but, a combination of my moaning and having a great audience that didn’t happen.  For the first time ever, I didn’t have to do the ‘No Talk Walk’   Part of me misses the days we used to have to put the microphone up full blast and throw the audience out because they were intoxicated…not a big part but the title of ‘Most Drunken Disorderly Audience’ has been relinquished and can be taken up by anyone who feels their life needs some stress.

The venue filled up, the seats were gone, the benches were gone and it was showtime!

The Show

Michael Redmond (MC)

What a legend! Michael often compere’s at The Stand; but to be honest, when you’ve been in comedy as long as he has I don’t think there’s anything much he hasn’t seen, done or mastered.  The audience were a little nervous at first and no one would admit being anywhere else apart from Glasgow or interact with him.  I think this comes from the dreaded fear of being in the front row and having the p**s taken out of you for the whole night.  However, Michael got round this by jumping off stage and standing in the chairs on the front row making the second row the new first row.  Michael is a 60 something year old guy but he jumped up on the chairs and really took ownership of the room and even found out we had someone from as far away as Loch Lomond.   Lots of laughs and with the audience warmed up it was time to bring on the first act

Stakatto Blue (Hula Hoop Act)

Stakatto is an amazing Hula hoop artist and there’s nothing she can’t do.  We decided to open with her as he act is high Energy and that would bridge the gap between Michael’s dry slow delivery and the next act’s high energy magic.

Her act was a comedy hula-hoop routine where she was doing some hula hooping with several hoops, every hoop getting smaller until the smallest hoop was produced from her pocket which was more of a bangle than a
A wee background story:  Not only is Kat a performer she teaches Hula Hoop classes and is very well known for her meticulous practice and the high degree of skill of which she possesses.   It’s almost quite annoying as in all the times I’ve seen her she’s never made a mistake…until tonight.  She’s been sick this week and the Doctors had ordered her to stay in bed so she’d missed a few days practice before she made it to the stage and boom, one tiny mistake and the hoop flew off her hand and hit someone in the front row.  It should point out, it was only a wee plastic hoop, there was no harm done and she recovered well and everyone loved her act.  Good to see she’s human and we hope you’re feeling better very soon Kat.hoop.   At the end of the routine she was spinning all the hoops in the act, one on her neck, one around her leg and the wee mini hoop on her finger.  It was all well received, especially to one person who received a hoop to the face!

p.s. Star rolled the hoops on stage no problems at all

Professor Callison (Madness & Magic)

Before we could welcome The Professor on stage, Michael Redmond fancied a shot of the hula-hoop and surprisingly done really well!  These multi-talented entertainers make it harder for the rest of us!  After showing off it was time to welcome onto stage Professor Callison.

The Mad Professor is in the Tommy Cooper mould of magic.  It’s a more entertainment than magic, very easy to watch and lots of fun.   The first was a trick where the 9 of heats was selected and found located in the professors crotch, the second was a mind-reading effect where a spectator coloured in a drawing which the professor had not only predicted how the drawings would be coloured in but ended up he was wearing the same clothes as the drawing.  The final trick is a popular one where the whole deck of cards is used to tell a story about Jack (one of the Jacks)

This was a new act from The Professor and there were some real gems in there and there were also some parts that need tightening up a bit as it ran ever so slightly over time.  However, The Professor sells 25 tickets (at least) for every show so we allow him the odd minute here or there so he can keep his many fans happy.

Break

As breaks go…it was ok, people got drinks and went to the toilet.  I decided to mill around the raffle prizes and as I hadn’t eaten anything for a while I thought I would treat myself to one of the chocolates that are for guests…after all, they are for Enterteasement people and I did buy them – where’s the harm in that?  Well… a tap on the shoulder later and I was informed that one of the guests had seen the chocolates and thought they were a raffle prize and had bought a ticket on that merit.  Then she thought I was eating her prize.  Aww bless.  So I explained and gave her a  free chocolate.  I offered her another 1 and she declined….I couldn’t help but think why she wanted to win the whole box so desperately but only wanted 1 chocolate; but who am I to take on the challenge of understanding how the inside of a woman’s mind works?

The lady and her partner told me they had decided to come and see us because of the description on the website, “we hire friendly comedians who don’t attack the front row”  This is true, we don’t hire the Frankie Boyle types as we believe it’s more about people celebrating the weekend and having a laugh rather than trying to get some political point across.  They then informed me that although that was the description on the website they decided to arrive late so they wouldn’t be sat on the front row.  Luckily for me it was time to start the second section.

Michael Redmond

It was time for the show to start back and in the next 7 minutes, something happened that I would never believe if I hadn’t seen it.  Michael decided to get people up for some horse riding,  I’ll refresh your memories on something – Michael is 62…and he was the horse.  Yip, People were sitting on him and I believe someone whipped him with the mic cable. (On writing this I still find myself in a state of disbelief) “Legends are born not made”.    It was simply genius!

Sam McInnes (Comedy 5 spot)

From someone who’s been doing comedy for decades to someone who’s performed for 3 months Michael then introduced Samantha McInnes.  Sam contacted us to see if she could help out on the door but as luck would have it the next act had said he was more comfortable doing 10 minutes, rather than 15, so we had a 5 minutes to fill.  When you start out in comedy you need to beg and plead for 5 minutes on gigs and most of the time it’s in front of 10 people with a sh**ty sound system.  However, Sam has good stage presence and material based on sex & a vintage clothing which is fitting to our theme and we decided to take the gamble.

I am really happy to announce the gamble paid off.   Sam took to the stage, delivered her material to a very high standard and got lots of laughs.  She’s working very hard at comedy and we we’re glad we could help her along her journey to becoming another very funny Scottish female comedian.

A Panda (Comedian)

A Panda is the creation of comedian Gary Black. One day someone said he looked like a panda and something in Gary’s head said, I’m going to invest in a panda outfit,  goth make-up and write a set about being an American panda.  We were a little bit worried about putting this sort of act on because alternative comedy doesn’t work great for our audience.  However, A Panda was very well received and performed well.

As many of you will know we “survey the f**k” out of people (as it was once put to me) but the most common reason people chose Enterteasement  is because it was something different.  Because of that, we like to keep the line-ups diverse and when we get the opportunity to put a panda on the bill – we’re do the old Captain Piccard and make it so!

Actual Panda was very good, something different and got lots of laughs.  We hope you found it educational.

Burlesque

It’s Burlesque time!! Whoop whoop.  I’m often asked, “what’s burlesque?” and “what’s the difference between burlesque and stripping?”   One of the main fundamentals is that burlesque tells a story.  The question I’m never asked is; “What is good burlesque?”  The answer to that could be quite clearly demonstrated in our 2 performers Psyclone jack & Nona Nightmare.  If you look through some burlesque photographs (it was honestly research) you’ll see the same facial expressions from the dancers.  That to me is lack of expression and performance.  Anyone new to burlesque or wanting to improve could have learned alot from watching our 2 performers this month.

Psyclone Jack (Burlesque)

Psyclone Jack’s is a burlesque act from USA, She’s been involved in the industry for years and her experience really showed on stage.  She performed her interpretation of a story that was based on the film Butterfly from The Grind House, Death Proof.  If you haven’t seen the film the contents of the act might have been lost on you.  However, what I really appreciated about this act was the minimalist approach to burlesque.  I’ve sifted through my fair share of burlesque videos (it’s a hard job I know – no pun intended)  and I’ve seen girls with loads of props and clothes struggle to hold the audience’s attention for a 3 and a half minute routine.  When Psyclone Jack took to the stage in a just a pair of hotpants and a t-shirt…I was a little concerned.  However, although only the t-shirt and the bra came off there was no point where people were thinking “speed it up”  She held the attention of the audience really well and had great stage presence.  I don’t know many burlesque dancers who could do a routine and hold the audience’s attention by only removing 2 items of clothing.  She left the stage with a well deserved massive applause.

Nona Nightmare (Burlesque)

Nona performed for us back in December and I heard so many glowing reports about her from our hardcore burlesque fans that I was really looking forward to seeing her act.  She has a style to her own with lots of music changes in her acts and props to keep the audience on their toes.  This routine was described as:

“Fall down the rabbit hole to Underland! You’ll meet many characters on the way, but is it a dream? This twisted tale just became a nightmare!”

She appeared on stage in 1 costume then changed into a rabbit and featured playing cards – This couldn’t have been a better fit for us.  What I loved about it though was, well…everything.  The Choreography, originality, comedy, teasing, music and the wee subtle things like the wink, cheeky smile or a subtle hand gesture for applause  everything about this act was perfect and the audience absolutely loved it.

Nona Nightmare was born for the stage and must be one of the UK’s (if not the worlds) leading Neo Burlesque performers.

Break

Nothing overly eventful happened in the break. It was time for the headline act.

Gary Little (Comedy)

Gary has been at the top of the Scottish Comedy Circuit for years; but, about 8 months ago he went from being great to being a super star.  God knows what happened; maybe it’s the big walks up Ben Nevis with his beloved dogs but whatever he’s doing if he keeps doing it there must be a TV show in the pipeline in the not too distant future.

Gary took to the stage and what happened next could only be described as “magic” Laughter has different levels but when you see people rocking back and forward, whipping the tears from their eyes and holding their sides you know the big man is knocking it out the park once again.

Gary had brought some DVDs with him to sell after the show (his own comedy DVDs not like Starwars) and he didn’t go home with any put it that way.

The gig closed, we packed up and all was well.  Went upstairs to watch Ricky Burns retain his World Boxing title (it was on the TV, he wasn’t fighting at The Admiral Bar)

We then had a wee chat with Gary Little who had visited the gents toilet and visited urinal 1…we know this because there are 2 urinals and above urinal 2 is a poster of Gary Little.  However, he went back in to check it out and I’m sure he had a moment when he thought, “Now I’ve made it! Photo above a bog in The Admiral Bar – Yas!”

Happy thoughts

There was a male audience member who came along to Enterteasement who loved it so much that he has taken up comedy and is fighting his way through the 5 minute spots – love that we’ve inspired someone! Hopefully he’s good and we can get him on the bill at some point.  Really hope we do the same with the burlesque.

Big thanks to

The audience, without you guys we wouldn’t have a show!
The person who got whacked with the hula hoop for not suing us
The Admiral Staff for getting the lights put in to make the stage look awesome

My team

My Angels: STAR , MHAIRI, MEL for taking care of everything for me.

IAN the sound guy

WULLY  MARR Photography http://www.facebook.com/wulliemarrphotography?fref=ts

The Acts (Please follow them on facebook, share the love folks)

BIG GARY LITTLE http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Gary-Little/165133553530227?fref=ts

(Buy his DVD!)

MICHAEL REDMOND: http://www.facebook.com/michael.redmond.9?fref=ts

(Can be seen at the Stand every Sunday)

GARY BLACK / A PANDA: http://www.facebook.com/goteamgaz

SAMANTHA McINNES: http://www.facebook.com/EccentricGenius?fref=ts

STAKATTO BLUE: http://www.facebook.com/Stakatto?fref=ts

(Teaches Hula Hoop workshops in Glasgow)

PSYCLONE JACK: http://www.facebook.com/psyclone.jack.3?fref=ts

(Is part of another burlesque company that has just moved to Glasgow so will be performing lots)

PROFESSOR CALLISON: http://www.facebook.com/ewan.callison?fref=ts

Magician for kids & adult parties…also provides hair products to salons!

The Scottish ShowGirl Sessions for donating burlesque prizes

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Show-Girl-Sessions-Ltd/270962472937119

 How Did We Do?

We think we did pretty well and by the photos over in http://www.facebook.com/enterteasement/photos_albums you’ll see some happy smiling faces.  If you were at the show please leave a take the quick survey to let us know how we did.

Click here to take survey