This circus life can lead to many places – recreational ground in small towns mainly, but for some it was the first taste of performance for a career in the public eye.
Get the eff back lion
Before he became a very good and scary actor and did that dance in Fatboy Slim’s video, Christopher Walken trained to be a lion tamer. Lion tamer. This was a realistic career opportunity for him. What a very different time he must have lived in.
Hey lion. I’m Sly. I’m quite thick, but I could probably take you in a fight.
He wasn’t the only one. Growth hormone lover and actor Sly Stallone also whipped them lions into shape before he discovered creatine and playing violent sorts in the movies. Maybe he tamed them with machine guns like in Rambo. Or punched them in the face like in Rocky. Or neither of the above and stuck to the regular method of whip and that. Whatevs.
Hi girls. Yes. It IS me. Try not to faint.
Dreamy hunk Patrick Dempsey the smooth and suave sort was pre-Grey’s Anatomy, a juggler. Yes. Juggler. That dashing dude that makes the ladies swoon juggled for coins. It’s slightly marred his sheen of man perfection hasn’t it? Juggling’s never really been a sexy type of past time. It’s just elaborate tossing. Never mind Patrick, at least you have your face.
Hi I’m friendly Hugh Jackman! I’m Australian! It’s ok!
And completing our circus line up (ok we couldn’t find anyone else and it’s knocking on for tea time and we’re hungry) Aussie actor and X-Man’s serious sideburn sporter Wolverine, Hugh Jackman pre Hollywood was a clown. A CLOWN. That’s worse than a juggler Hugh. But it’s ok, we won’t hate on you, because you’re ace. And because of them sideburns. And because you sang about excrement and danced at the OSCARS. Clown past forgiven Hugh!
On Saturday 31st March at KOKO and on April 14th at the Ruby Lounge, we’re celebrating the world of stage and song and back flipping policemen at The Sound of Musicals. Tickets over here!
We’ve picked our (current) top five (it changes daily to be fair), but we find it horrendously difficult to decide on which is our favourite that these, like failing acts on a reality show, are in NO PARTICULAR ORDER.
Let’s start the non-countdown!
Iconically be-decked, although she didn’t know it at the time, Liza as Sally Bowles in the heart-shaped bob, big eyes and whacking lung capacity gives pretty much the best performance of her career in Cabaret. Apart from in Arthur. Oh and when she divorced that wally David Guest. Oh and when she wakes up every day generally being amazing. But aside from those, this is definitely her best performance. She’s one of very few who have won a Tony, an Emmy, and Oscar and a Grammy. That spells OGET, or TOGE or EGOT. None of those are words though. Let’s just watch the clip shall we and desist in this inane spiel of nonsense? Ok!
He may be a wacky scientologist, denying his wife drugs when she gave birth (nice!) but he can move and sing like no other even when sporting a fat suit, wig and spangly frock as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray. Yes, we’re talking Travolta. There’s many musical moments from his career that we could have picked – Grease and er, one of his underrated LPs – but this song is such ridiculously good fun that it had the edge. And it’s John Travolta IN A FROCK!
For anyone who’s ever harboured dreams about making it in this difficult world of entertainment, thoughts will have turned to schools of Performing Arts at some point where you can hone your craft amongst a myriad of needy, loud-mouthed, show offs who find it necessary to make a colossal din at every given opportunity because they are PERFORMERS and are EXPRESSING THEMSELVES so EVERYONE CAN LOOK AT THEM AND TELL THEM HOW WONDERFUL THEY ARE AS THEY HAVE TERRIBLY LOW SELF ESTEEM. Take Fame for example, even when you’re trying to get your chips and beans in the canteen and have a quiet sit down they’ll tip up all legs akimbo dancing on your lunch tray whooping a great deal. You have been warned.
Liza’s mom and a heroine to many, Judy Garland was a mere slip of thing when she donned the gingham dress and hooked up with a Scarecrow, a cowardly Lion, a Tin Man and her soft rock dog Toto and galavanted round Oz accidentally murdering witches and avoiding trees lobbing their apples at them, all whilst wearing some of the spangliest shoes one eyes hath ever seen. It is a masterpiece ’tis true. Better than Star Wars *sits back and waits for cacophony of abuse*
Oh we have to round this off with the Muppets. Where would we be without the Muppets? How dull a childhood would we have had sans Fozzie’s rubbish gags and Gonzo’s disastrous endeavors? No Pigs in Space. No Swedish Chef. No Beaker. NO KERMIT. ‘Tis truly a life bereft, so let’s have that team of furry hilarity sing us out as we exit the stage in a blizzard of bouquets / confetti / bits of crap from people’s pockets that they’re lobbing at us…
We’re pumping ourselves up for our Let’s Get Physical parties in London on January 28th and Manchester on February 11th. We’re necking the protein shakes and carbo loading a-plenty. All we need to do now is go to the gym.
To inspire us into such a heady task, we’re looking to the world of pop culture to motivate us into becoming the perfect physical specimens we are currently hiding away inside our flabby bodies. Plus we can pick up some handy fashion pointers too as frankly, shorts with a perished underpant lining and a faded Reading Festival T shirt from 1996 isn’t going to turn many heads now is it?
First off, Man 2 Man are going to sell us the virtues of this gym life. “Do you wanna be Jane Fonda or at least be like her?” they ask. YES! “Do you wanna be Arnold Schwarzenegger or at least be like him?” Er no! But thanks for asking!
If that was an all too frighteningly butch affair, then let the fragrant Olivia Newton-John guide you through her workout regime, which seems to involve pounding on some comedy fat lads a bit whilst wearing a natty headband. They all turn into oiled Adonises in tiny brightly coloured pants. Wow that’s some feat ONJ. They also only have eyes for each other. Oh bad luck old girl, still you can pull off the sportswear look with panache so that’s something. Even if the boys don’t notice, we do:
If contact sports, grunting and looking a bit mangled are more up your street then may we suggest Rocky? It can help you on the way to achieving all these things plus bonus dead animal punching!
The more graceful amongst us may not find other people’s sweat flicked on them as an appealing environment for exertion, so ice skating may be an option. You get a nice flouncy outfit, no one bats an eyelid at the amount of slap and fake tan you wear, it looks rather fancy etc. The only set back is that a de-ponytailed, ex-England goalie *may* drop you chin first on the ice. But as long as you avoid that you should be fine. The aim is Bolero, all dramatic reaching, sincere facial expressions and perfectly timed spins. Swoonsome. The reality is probably a trip down the hozzer and a limb in plaster courtesy of your butter-fingered partner. Ah well, one can dream:
Golf isn’t a sport. It’s standing around, talking and walking on a nice lawn with fancy poles and balls. But walking in plus fours! And brightly coloured knits as favoured by Irish light entertainers! Then shoes with studs and tassles! Ok, we can see the merits a little more, especially when Chevy Chase is holding the irons:
Children are never too young to get into sport. Especially ones where they can beat each other up. Everyone loves a violent child. Karate is a philosophy though; it’s controlled, it’s measured, it’s disciplined. Yeah, it’s still kicking another human harder than they kick you though isn’t it? With or without a wise Chinese elder:
Soap stars have often turned their hand to the world of music. With varying degrees of success. Eastenders has had a shed load of them appearing in the charts and even turned their theme tune into a top five smash via Anita Dobson’s vocal stylings.
Coronation Street has too had a few, but has also done the reverse with Shayne from Boyzone and Kym Marsh from Hear’Say appearing in the Rovers.
But who’s been the best at pop in terms of chart success? Let us cast our minds back and see. First up, the girls.
Michelle Gayle was Hattie in the London show in the ’90s who everyone liked then went to Norwich and never came back. Maybe she’d had enough of the city. In reality she was unleashing her inner popstrel unto the world in 1994. She got to number four with the above track “Sweetness” and wore the same outfit in the video as she did on her TOTP debut. Maybe it was wash day and she had nothing else. She did sing it live though and actually can sing. It’s a shame the song’s a bit blah. And that she didn’t do a wash.
And then wheeled in on a Kwik Save trolley looking like having just woken up in a bin comes the cobbles’ Tracy Shaw aka Maxine Peacock. After her character was murdered by another of Gayle’s well chosen husbands, the homicidal Richard Hillman, Tracy tried but ultimately failed quite badly to launch a pop career. She did a cover of “Happening All Over Again” by Lonnie Gordon which limped in at number 46, then tried a year later with the above. No chart date seems to appear for this one, nor video or performance. Why IS that one wonders? Listen to the above and you may find the answer.
So that’s 1-0 to Eastenders. Let’s see what the men bring.
Dopey, dozy, in fact all the seven dwarves rolled into one Ricky Butcher, left Eastenders as Sid Owen because Sid Owen is a real man who played him. Sid had dreams of cod reggae tinged chart stardom you see so he left the square and covered “Good Thing Going” by Sugar Minott. It got to number 14, then not much else happened as no one wanted a full album frankly and the novelty had worn off so he went back to Eastenders where you can see him being Ricky again, just a bit portlier.
Christ. Nick Tilsey the second, came back to Corrie from years in Canada in the form of hunky Adam Rickitt. He wasn’t the best at acting, but he had a pretty face so that always helps. Adam tried his pop luck with the above “Breathe Again” single which saw him naked in a glass box in a fictional laboratory in not-at-all-cynical attempt at chart stardom via the medium of flesh and appealing to the gay community. It got to number five and sold over 200,000. Yes, 200,000. He released a couple of other singles and an album and then was dumped by his label. Since then he has come back to Corrie, left, come back and then left again; attempted a political career; acted in New Zealand soap Shortland Street and been arrested for shoplifting cheese, coffee and HP sauce in an Auckland supermarket. Apparently he was pissed. Either way, he wins it for the boys.
Corrie 1-1 Enders.
So who to choose for the deciding vote? Well we’ll take it to the groups.
From the south we have this:
Released as a single as a result of a plotline in the show , Sharon and Kelvin had chart success despite the difficult-to-dance-to nature of the track (the beat is too fast for the melody and sounds like two different tracks being played at once and therefore renders ones feet confused) getting to number 12 in the charts. They were probably dead pleased and that until Nick Berry took the shine off it though with his number one for “Every Loser Wins“, the big show off.
And from the north – YE GODS – we have this:
A musical account of some of the most famous episodes sung by the cast. It’s actually real and you can buy it should you so desire. Miss T. A. Scott from Tyne and Wear gives it five stars and says she “can count on one hand how many CD’s I have, but this album is the most original CD you will probably hear”. Probably. It was released via Tesco and didn’t make the top 100 on release. They also released Nadine Coyle’s album and managed to shift 117 copies on the first day. They didn’t do many more on the second.
Therefore Eastenders are the champions of the charts.
Well done.
They should release an album of all their hits. Perhaps not with Tesco though.
Exciting news we bring. Future Cinema, in partnerships with California Tourism, have invited us to take part in a blockbuster weekend of cinematic spectacle. Guilty Pleasures will be providing the musical sparkle to the forthcoming California Classicsweekend from Future Cinema, the people behind the excellent Secret Cinema.
On Saturday 3rd September and Sunday 4th September they’ll be screening two cult classics in a top secret London location and Guilty Pleasures shall be providing the entertainment alongside it all. Oh my GOD we can’t wait!
The Saturday showing is the Lost Boys and Top Gun is Sunday’s screening. YAY! The Lost Boys were the original EMO kids of the 80s, including Keifer Sutherland with Billy Idol hair and rather than sitting about moaning and listening to My Chemical Romance, they were vampires. Puts our modern miserable teens to shame non?
Top Gun: (c) 1986 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
TOP GUN(tm) IS A TRADEMARK OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. (ok, point made)
Top Gun we feel needs no introduction to you all but let’s just say Tom Cruise, jet planes, massively homoerotic scenes and uniforms. Nothing more needs to be said frankly.
For those of you who aren’t aware of the whole brilliance of Secret Cinema and Future Cinema then boy are you in for a treat. The events are fully immersive live experiences with performance, theatre, art installations, entertainment and mystery locations, plus more. Read all about what to expect and book tickets here –welcometocalifornia.co.uk. And while you wait for 4th September to come around, watch their past events, like The Warriors here.
It all starts at 4pm and tickets are £24.50 for each day. See you there.
