The Weakest Link

One of the most memorable incidents from my 2001 Round The World In Drag journey - a Sydney embarrassment, to set my friend Jo laughing,- Jo, We’re about to leave Melbourne. It’s not been very special to be honest. The city is so big and hard to get around and everything you want to do is a full taxi-ride away from something else. Some of the gay-bars were very quiet too. But we’ve not had a bad time. We got to the Exchange Hotel for their show. They have a new show-theatre rebuilt after a fire. But they haven’t got round to re-building the hotel bit yet or we would have stayed there. The show is a bit straight (?!) but good. Amanda Moore’s the motherly one, Jessica James the fatty and Linda Lamonte the skinny one and they run through quite a few familiar tunes, “Call Me”, “Ring Those Bells”, “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” – the costume highlight is cerise snakeskin. In the second half we get “Hey, Mickey”, “Love Shack” (with pom-poms) and “The Grunt Song” in funny costumes, before they reprise everything (lazy cows!) as a finale. The theatre’s nice and the bar is done out with screens for surfing and E-Mails. Lots of the boys are stuck to them, very cool, very hip, very Melbourne. Actually I haven’t told you about my exploits before we left Sydney for Melbourne. I was on stage again, but, hang on, there’s a lot of complications in this story. You remember I’d done my “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” routine in Adelaide – well, I’d forgotten what Kitty said about there being a similar night at the Albury in Sydney until I got back last time. And I went in and asked and they said that I could do something on Sunday, the Amateur Night hosted by Doreen Manganinnie – and that was the next night! Panic! Well, I went for it. The Cindy song again, and – should I be ashamed of this? why change a winning (!) formula? I thought – the rainbow dress, the winning stockings (remember), and golden eye-lashes. Getting ready was all a bit of a rush, but by 6.30 I was in a cab for a short trip to the Albury – in my sandals actually, stillies are murder going down the hill. So I sit in the Cocktail Bar, - where I saw Barbara Bubbles doing her cabaret set the night before - listening to my tape of the song – why am I nervous? – until Doreen turns up and takes me downstairs. The girls are getting ready, but all I’ve got to do is my lips, nails and shoes (the stillies, at last). There’s Joyce in big colours, and Lucy, who’s taller and older with purple gloves and fan and a big white ring. Some others were there to help, drag off-duty, including David who’s going on as a boy. Doreen is busy sorting her outfits, but we start early, 7.30, and there are two shows. Oh, No! I remember Kitty saying I’d need two numbers and I’ve only got the one. Will I be on for the second show? Not long after we’re upstairs, through the Cocktail Bar, and in the little back-stage space between it and the Front Bar, right up against the cash-cupboards, bar rosters and admin notices, not to mention a few drag left-overs like costumes and drinks. I have a little peek through the curtain and see a small crowd. So eventually there’s Doreen, fresh from Melbourne (“ugly audience”) and Auckland and with stories to tell, Lucy, David, Pandora, who I’d seen do her stuff at “Frocks at Fox”, Joyce and Scab Drag, big girl who got her name because the first time she did the Albury she fell over onto the stage and skinned her leg (old stories die hard). Doreen is out and after delivering her first big number she starts to work the audience, - God, she worked them! She knows how to get a Sunday audience going. Then it was Lucy with “That’s Entertainment”. While she’s on the DJ comes through for my CD. Then it’s me – “From England, on a world tour, fresh from Cambodia – Mandy!” And so I do it again, and this time, if I can relax enough, I can watch myself on the video and in the mirror opposite the stage. Do you remember I said that the Albury stage is in the middle of the Bar? The audience is all around you, and that put a few strains on my stilletto manoeuvres. The crowd didn’t seem that interested but I got through O.K., I thought, and heard Doreen say “Wasn’t she camp?” as I went off. She was going to have a little onstage chat with me but I’d disappeared. David is nervous, but his song goes O.K., Pandora’s a pro, and she does it fast and furious, and Scab Drag is sweating, big and blowsy (unlike the rest of us who are just sweating and blowsy). Joyce gets a big introduction but then she’s got her helper carrying on a miniature mountain range made of cardboard! She does a “Nepalese Love-Song” unaccompanied, with singalong/join in “a capella” chorus. I can hear her and the audience stamping away from behind the curtain. After that it’s time for a break! Don’t worry, Jo, I’m getting to the main point. I haven’t got a second number. Back in the dressing room with a drink, I bluff a bit and we agree I’ll do the same song. I’m offered a few CD’s but….. Scab is changing her jacket and Lucy is mugging up on “New York New York” for her second number – only the second time she’s done it. All the changing of frocks, lending of eye-liner, choosing tracks (Scab likes to cut it fine, I think), and we’re on again. Now I am nervous – I need the loo. When I get back-stage Doreen is missing. Her tits, with what look like olives as nipples, are on the stool but she’s late. It’s a different DJ who’s getting impatient. The bar-staff are coming through all the time, and I squeeze a photo of us girls in between ciggies and fanning ourselves – it’s hot in that little space! Doreen turns up, slips in her tits and away we go. She does “I Will Survive” big-style, then a long audience wind-up. She likes making a thing about her being aboriginal, and she picks out Scottish, Irish and South Africans from the audience. Backstage with me Lucy’s nervous, but through the curtain she goes and she’s sensational. I don’t quite realize what’s happening but in the middle of New York the DJ brings through her wig, - the crowd is roaring, and when she comes in she’s so happy. She actually threw the wig off herself in a big moment and it got the crowd on her side. What a trouper! I’m on and Doreen and I have a little chat first. I tell her and the crowd that it’s the “same song, same frock” with optional singalong. And I pick out a fair-haired boy in the front row at the bar to take me a flash photo when I flash my stockings and whatever at him during the number. And off I go, again. Some of the people here have heard all this before, I think, but….what’s the options? I hear Doreen talking thought the mike while I’m doing my stuff. Flash! I lift my skirt, Flash! The camera goes off. I hear Doreen saying to the crowd, “Do you want more?” More flash? I think, More flesh? And then the music cuts and before I can work out what’s happened Doreen’s at my elbow. “You are the Weakest Link!” I know when I’m not wanted, and sign off with some comment about, “Love to All In The U.K.” before exiting, rather flouncily, I seem to remember. “You were good”, says Scab backstage which in my experience means “You were bad, but you need all the consolation you can get, girl”. While I’m reliving my fiasco the show goes on, Pandora, Scab and, before Joyce, Doreen runs a sort of sexy interactive thing with the audience which involves boys stripping shirts off and drinking something odd. A boy from Paramatta is good but the South African wins. Doreen’s got a soft spot or something for him – “I wouldn’t give up sex for a career, but I’d give up a career to move to South Africa”. Finally Joyce brings up the rear with a big lip-synching thing and it’s all over bar the shouting – so I go downstairs. There’s only Pandora and Lucy. I change my shoes and put away my things, a bit thoughtful, and have a little wander round the costumes space where they have all the stuff for the main shows. I spy the Egyptian stuff the Pink Bits wear. Doreen comes in with a bit of fussing, she’s going to do an interview with Pandora for “Out West, a ”radio show P does. I’m hanging round like a spare part. One of the girls has fixed up the South African for Doreen, which causes a few problems as she’s due at another club in no time. Time to go. I say Bye and hit Oxford Street in my sandals. A come-down in every way. Sydney knows a fake when it sees one. Jo, “the Weakest Link”! – and I hate the programme! Am I crestfallen? You bet I am. Time for a rethink, I guess. And that may have put me in the mood for Melbourne. I forgot to say that I’d fixed up an Internet date with a “straightandmasc” from the city. Well, like so much this week, it never came off. He didn’t reply with a number to ring, I sat in waiting to no effect, and in the end, when I found that the Exchange had E-mail in the bar, I sent him a right royal telling-off and “Bye” message on one of the machines. I even got a photo of me doing it. It’s been that sort of a week. If you can’t win, lose with style. And how about you? Love Mandy