Put Your Hands Up

I’m working in David Hoyle’s current show Dave’s Drop-in Centre at Vauxhall Tavern at the moment. It’s probably the largest project I’ve been involved in so it’s a little bit nerve wracking. In fact, the first week was so fraught with nervous energy behind the scenes that I could barely remember a thing that happened afterwards. I was fair blummin knackered the following day though!

So far we’ve had drag queen nuns, contemporary dance, avant gard music performance along with live piercing and bloodletting - I particularly enjoyed the bloodletting.

The reaction from the audience was fantatsic – lots of gasps and squirming followed by complete silence as they acquainted themselves with the spectacle. It’s not what you expect from your typical Thursday night cabaret and I say hurray! David went on to paint a self-portrait in blood and, should you care to, you can now place a bid for it on eBay.

This week I’m proper excited because, as I previously mentioned, our special guests are none other than JUSTIN BOND and OUR LADY J. SCREAM!!!!!!!!!

PERFECT LINE-UP ALERT - *MEEP MEEP*.

Did I say I was nervous on the first show? I’d better stock up on Imodium for this one!

Talking of which, our other special guest is Ashley Ryder, the self-fisting porn star I saw with Buck Angel at Ray of Light in 2007. You can read all about it here, though I must warn that this link is NOT WORK SAFE for those who are worried about such matters. It’s not like I could give a toss. In fact I was sat in the office on Friday chatting on the phone to Joan Dairy Queen – "Ashley Ryder, you know ... the PORN STAR. He does FISTING. No not shit, just FISTING. He self-fists, that’s his speciality ... I can’t help think it will cause him problems in later life though, and to look at him he looks like an angel, like butter wouldn’t melt..."

Fuck ‘em if they don’t like it, I’m not too keen on their endless bloody stories about their children either.

Still, I might draw the line at relating the story that David told us, via Ashley, on Thursday. Apparently he goes to these poo parties and the worry always is that they’ll run out of poo. So the people who are going produce a stool throughout the week, wrap it in cling film and pop it in the freezer compartment. Come party day they simply unwrap it, put it in the microwave until it reaches body temperature and hey bongo – poop all round and a bit left over for afters.

You see, you don’t just get socio-political entertainment at Dave’s Drop-in, we also provide very important PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS.

So get your arses down there, there’s no excuse really. Entry is just £6 plus vat, and along with David, Nathan Evans (the director) and a supporting cast, you also get to see me parade around in my uniform looking like an LGBT police officer.

Ooh, I forgot to mention my favourite bit this week was when I got let loose with a megaphone handing out hymn sheets during the interval for our community sing-a-longs! Toby and I commented, when watching Shortbus, how happy Justin looked in the closing scenes when he is parading around with a megaphone, and I can completely understand it. It’s fab – such a ludicrous power trip. Ha ha!

See you Thursday.