Grease is the Word...or not as the case seems to be

So I'm a big musicals person. I am a mine of useless information about them and I love going to the theatre to see them. Obviously there are the favourite ones that you see over and over again, and the ones that steal 3 hours of your life never to be gained back.

This year I'm directing Grease for the school I work in and so myself, and the two other teachers involved took ourselves up to The Big Smoke to see the current West End production. We saw the 5.30pm performace last night and well...my middle schoolers are doing a better job after only 4 rehearsals.

Apparently the cast was new that week, but if that is the case, then I'd be dragging them all back for notes. With fluffed lines, wrong dance moves, mostly dreadful, mumbled american accents which meant that lines were unintelligible it was a disaster.

I've seen 7 or 8 professional productions of Grease, both in the West End and on Tour, but this is by far the worst. Dancers were unsure of the highly simplified routines and dear god, the 'Born To Handjive' number was half the speed it's meant to be! At £32.50 a ticket, I'm seriously debating asking for my money back, but on the plus side...My wee school production is looking better and better by the minute ;)

You love my lady lumps!

OK, I know it's been forever since I last posted, but I do have many good excuses. As you can imagine, going back to the new school term was pretty hectic, and after all the health issues I've had this last 18 months, I wasn't going to jeapardise my progress by doing too much. Halfterm term flew by in a heartbeat and the joys of the christmas production left me without a minute to call my own. Christmas this year was fairly blah, though watching one of my oldest childhood friends tie the knot on New Year's Eve was lovely. Sadly nothing tickled my fancy as worth blogging about...until now.

Now some of you may have noticed that I like to try to use song lyrics as my post titles (yes I'm a pretentious cow) and may be wondering where tonights title is leading. Well let's just say that this weekend I had an epiphany and we can take it from there ;)

I've always known that men are fascinated by breasts, but until this weekend, I'd never really seen how much they were derailed by a good set of boobs. I'm going to call it 'The Corset Effect'.

This weekend, I went down to London with two pals for 'Afternoon Tease' at the Volupte Lounge. The Tease run's from 2pm-5pm and is a traditional afternoon tea, served with a back drop of the burlesque that volupte is renowned for. Having been to the lounge several years ago for an evening meal and show, I knew we were in for a treat.

The girls decided that they wanted to dress up a little for the show and had both decided on elegant black pencil skirts topped with a corset. Me being me, opted for the lovely new Vivien of Holloway day dress that Santa had brought me for christmas, my original 40's coat, and Great Aunt Elsie's handbag. The only thing I was missing, to be the perfect 50's lady who lunches, were white gloves and a hat. Sally had talked me out of the hat before we left ;)

After I'd laced the girls into their corset (cos trust me, you really need a pal for that) we climbed into the car and headed for the train station. Even with a jacket covering their assets, we turned heads as we ran to catch the leaving train. One poor wee teenager almost gave himself whiplash turning to watch the boobies bounce as we hopped through the closing doors.

Arriving at St Pancras, the heads continued to turn, though by now they were followed with the angry mutters of irate wives and girlfriends, warning their men not to stare. Heading down to the underground, we stopped to look at the map and decide what our quickest route would be. Seconds after stopping there, a short, bald, rail worker materialised beside Joand, staring directly down her cleavage, asked where we wanted to go. I could actually see the drool pooling in his mouth as he watched those perfectly shaped globes rise and fall with her suppressed giggles.

None of us could contain our laughter as we head off to catch our tube, and it only got louder as we discovered that Sally's ticket wouldn't go through the machines. Once again a male rail worker appeared at our sides, and in just a few shorts minutes, she'd been buzzed through on the barriers, without even a second glance at her ticket. Or should I say receipt? You see Sally had put her ticket safely in her bag and held onto the receipt by mistake. There was no way it was going to work in any of the machines!

Arriving at Volupte (by way of another pub's toilets so Jo could haul her tights back into place) we immediately made friends with the lovely Mike, who plied us with delicious cocktails until it was time to be seated downstairs. The table was right on the perfornmance floor and once again, breasticles caused chaos during the very first act. Hula boy was hilarious, and even more entertaining when he took one look at Sally's stunning cleavage and dropped all his hoops. We were reliably informed later that it really wasn't part of the act ;)

So why do those milky round lumps of tissue cause such an extreme reaction in guys? Can any of you tell me? To us girlies, they are merely the cause of many problems, heartaches and for those of us that are well endowed, a serious dent in your wallet. Why does underwear cost so much more as your cup size increases? What can I say guys, breast may be best, but boy are they trouble ;)

www.volupte-lounge.co.uk

www.vivienofholloway.com