It was precisely a year ago this month that I blogged about “Scream With A Queen”, where Cherry is the hostess with the mostess and gets a party of intrepid party goers geared up and raring to go on a ghost hunt. Well, Saturday just gone was one of those evenings, held in the salubrious location of Tutbury Castle in Derbyshire. The castle still belongs to “The Crown”. It has been documented to have been a temporary home for Mary Queen of Scots, just before Elizabeth I ordered her to have her final haircut - you know, where everything from the neck up is removed!!!!
For the first time ever, we were actually caught late due to traffic and turned up after the hen party Cherry was entertaining had got there. Well, panic stations wasn’t the word - I have never put a PA system together so fast in my life - although I was still mystified why the CD players wouldn’t work, but not to worry the music on the laptop was working. I was just a bit miffed that this “new” system was heavy to lug about, and after getting a hernia moving the bugger it still wouldn’t play a CD...(OK miffed is not the word, mightily pissed off describes it better...)
Thankfully the hen party were being served dinner, which meant we had time to get organised and Cherry to transform.
Whilst helping hubby into his corsetry I was wondering to myself what would have Elizabethan England made of Cherry...then realised that it was probably due to Elizabethan England and the likes of Shakespeare that Drag Queens exist!!!
Apparently, women were not allowed to be actors back in Shakespeare’s time and it fell to the men to play the female parts - and if so, then the acronym DRAG was used against the parts that were required to be played as women, which apparently represented that the actor “DRessed As Girl”. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but it is quite a nice idea to think that the history of Drag is far richer for it.
Anyhow, I digress - eventually Cherry was ready to start the night off for the hen party and it fell to me to introduce her - which I am not keen to do as I have a real issue about being the centre of attention, plus I didn’t want to sound like one of those cheesy mobile DJ’s that you get at weddings...
“ Are you ready for some entertainment ladies!”, to which I got a resounding “Yes!” (And Cheesy Mobile DJ Kev is born...bugger...)
“Are you ready to meet the new Princess of the Paranormal??” again a huge shout of “Yes!”
“Are you ready to meet the Diva of Darkness??” - the girls got louder and more excited...this is cool!
“Ladies, it is the vibrant, the vivacious, the venereal disease free....Cherry Darling!!!”
And what surprised me more was that I got a roomful of laughter. It was a glib little comment, but the fact that I made some people laugh was astonishing and it gave me a brief glimpse as to why Cherry and the other drag acts on the circuit love doing what they do.
Anyhow, I hope Liz and her hens from Norwich had a nice night and Cherry and I wish her and Tim all the best for the future.
