Club Cabaret Part Deux!
Centrepoint Theatre Director: Dan Pengelly Review Date: 21/09/2019 If you were lucky enough to catch Club Cabaret at Centrepoint Theatre last year, then you will be just as excited as I was to see ‘Part Deux!’ (if you’re scratching your head—it means part two) get brought back along with many of the same lovable characters and a seasoning of fresh ones. ‘Life is a cabaret’ and that is what we get to see at Club Cabaret Part Deux! All the messy and untidy real-life drama between lovable MC ‘Pierre’ played by Dan Pengelly and his wife ‘Darlene’ played by Darlene Mohekey spill out onto the stage. Pierre somehow manages to hold things together and keep ‘Club Cabaret’ moving along in an entertaining yet disintegrating way. Emulating the low-budget vibe of your average cabaret there was a very similar set to the last Club Cabaret and if I am not mistaken the sign above musician Kane Parsons had been dusted off and put back up in the same old position. Clearly, they wished to be extremely authentic. Darlene Mohekey graced the stage in a variety of different roles impersonating many cabaret stars. Personally, I think she is bloody great (and I think I am in good company in that opinion). On opening night Mayor Grant Smith was in attendance and that made him a prime candidate for being dragged up on stage by a drunk Shirley Temple impersonating Darlene. How she managed to get his fingers in her mouth shocked both me, the audience, and Grant Smith I suspect, and gave me an absolute belly-laugh. I really hope she washed her mouth out after that. If my life is a cabaret it is certainly a cabaret with shit costumes. Darlene is an absolute darling and rolled out an exhausting number of costume changes which were all amazing. Apparently, her Mum was in the audience on the night and is responsible for creating her many beautiful outfits, what a legend (I hope I heard that right). I’m considering changing my wardrobe at home to the ‘costume department’ and stealing the reused ‘Club Cabaret’ sign from Centrepoint Theatre after the show is over so I can hang it above my front door. I’ve also talked to the hubby about installing a trapeze/swing in the front yard so that I can dress up from my ‘wardrobe department’ and swing like Pink and yell feminist rants at the top of my voice. But this is not about me its about Club Cabaret Part Deux!, I was just getting carried away after all the inspiration on the night. David Ladderman returns to the show with a personality that’s big enough to fill the room and the room next door and the one next to that. He seems like the sort of guy who would be fun at parties but annoying all the rest of the time (I wouldn’t know cos I’ve never met him off-stage but if he brings that much energy to a room on a regular day—no, sit down.) David always enters the stage with a variety of regular looking props and somehow makes them seem like the most interesting thing you’ve ever seen. You won’t need to see the show if I tell you what he gets up to, but I can promise his acts will keep you riveted. David Heaphy is one of the fresh acts to join Club Cabaret Part Deux! and he gets up to some stuff that is both riveting and sickening. It was a love/hate situation for me. Every time he came onstage, I couldn’t help but wonder what sick shit he’d get up to this time. I think I held my breath the entire time he was on stage, covered my eyes and mouth and squealed ‘no’ or ‘oh my god’ repeatedly. What he could do with a tennis racket was mind-boggling. Ellyce Bisson was also a new kid on the block at Club Cabaret Part Deux! and wowed everyone with her gravity-defying dance and aerial acts. I’ve never been able to get my legs to do what Ellyce did with hers. Seeing is believing and I believe I can’t. Indy Henman is also new to Club Cabaret but not to Centrepoint Theatre where she has been involved in a number of excellent shows. Indy plays an intern at Club Cabaret Part Deux! and is delightful to watch as she refuses to be deterred by Pierre from bringing her own act to the stage. As usual Indy’s charming personality is infectious, and her dance skills are impeccable. Pierre is a lovely, stoopid, sarcastic character. Personally I'd like to hug Pierre with my arms and legs wrapped around him. Unfortunately that's unlikely to happen because Pierre doesn't look like he could hold that kind of weight, and I don't have the strength in my arms to hold myself up. However, if you feel compelled to leap at him and squeeze him hard with your arms and legs I reckon he'd appreciate it. Maybe you think your life is complete without the sparkle and drama of a good cabaret— it’s probably not. When you go to Club Cabaret Part Deux! you get to laugh and see cool things, and if you don’t want that in your life you should really ask yourself—why not? If you want to live life dangerously, I’d suggest booking one of the VIP tables at the front of the stage but if you’d just like to watch and laugh from a distance then the back row is a nice safe place to reside.
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You’ve started your business and you’re set-up on Instagram and Facebook and you’ve got a growing number of followers--awesome! So far you’ve managed to conduct your business via social media, you’ve got an engaged audience who are buying your services, and you can’t see any reason why you’d need a website (congratulations by the way). You can use Facebook and Instagram Ads to boost posts and do advertising so it’s all good right? Well, maybe… But, what happens if you accidentally violate Facebook’s terms and conditions and before you know it your page is deleted? Now you’re in cyber solitary confinement and you are not considered innocent till proven guilty, you are guilty, guilty, guilty and not allowed to have your Facebook business page back. No one will hear your cyber screams because you have disappeared into hot cyber air and your followers are just carrying on liking and commenting on other business pages and maybe even buying their services. What a shame that you didn’t have a website with a blog and an email sign-up form so that you could still write to your business family. It might seem like I’m being dramatic, I can be pretty dramatic, but this is actually a genuine problem. Just google “why did my facebook page get deleted” and prepare yourself for the equivalent of a business horror show. This handy article might help you avoid getting your page deleted and offers some advice about what to do if you do find yourself wearing Facebook’s cloak of invisibility. I don’t want to double-down on scaring you into realising that you can’t rely on just Facebook to run your business from, but I’m going to, here’s another article that explains some of the ways that Facebook may end up deleting your business page and maybe even pages that haven’t made any violations yet just incase they might do so. I’ve made my point haven’t I? There are a ton of reasons why you really should have a business website, even if it is only a homepage with some contact details. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here and regurgitate all the reasons myself when there is actually hundreds of articles out there that explain it all perfectly well. So I’ll just direct you to a good one and honestly if you need more information than what this excellent article provides, you probably should level-up and stop reading my blog because it is not going to satisfy your hunger! Here you will find out everything you need to know, including what you need to think about before you start building your website, what things can really make a bad impression, and how your website should be the anchor for your marketing. Here’s the takeaway message: You should have a website for your business if you want to be in control of your online presence. If you’d like me to walk you through the process of getting your website set-up and doing what it needs to then just keep an eye out for these handy blog posts where I’ll share mine and other experts opinions. ***FULL DISCLOSURE***
When I started You Have My Word (three years ago) I very hurriedly put a website together. I put very little time into it because sometimes I take some very poorly thought out actions.My website has changed over the years to be a little better each time but tbh, it's actually pretty shit.I always intend to overhaul it 'when I get some spare time' but that just never ends up happening. The truth is that I don't get much work through my website and I really only have it so that people can look me up online if they want to. But, I have written a lot of web content for clients over the years and I carry-out web audits for people to identify strengths and weaknesses in their websites. So, it's about time for me to practice what I preach. Over the next little while I'll be sharing with you all the tips and tricks for making sure your website is in top notch form and doing the work it should be doing. I know you're all so excited, right? If you want to see how shameful my website is right now then pop on over to www.youhavemyword.nz and start tut-tutting. P.S. The picture above is nothing like how my work-space looks or will ever look. It's just a pretty stock photo I grabbed from Unsplash |
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