The Apothecary: Confinement!
Haunt, 5th April 2017
Promoter: Mariposa Bop
Host: Driscoll Bleak
Starring: Marnie Scarlet, Barry Island, Martin Morris Music, Connor Hainsford (Motivational Speaker), Mortimer Moonbender, Lili Mirezmoi, Layla Cherry, Primrose Proper
Stage Managers: Kitty Petite, Poppy Liqueur
Fun & Games: Gin or Not Gin, Poppy Liqueur’s never ending sentence word game
“Haribo for all!”
Bop family war cry
It’s cool and steamy in Stoke Newington this evening. Can things be ‘cool’ and ‘steamy’ at the same time? Why yes they can! It’s like having chills, it’s like experiencing a fever. It’s like being demonic, depraved, delicious and delectable all at the same time.
The Apothecary’s a little bit like that. Madness, mayhem, sexiness and sassiness combine to make one feel ever so queer and unbeatable.
Yum!
Speaking of yum, there are some sweets and chocolates going round…
>>>SSSSSSHHHHOOOOOGGGAAAARRR >>>>>>>>RRRRRUSSSSHHH! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>UMMM<<<
And calm…
Oh, here comes Mariposa Bop to start off the show… BIG HAIR, BIG DRESS, BIG BOP!
“Hello! I’ve forgotten what volume this is,” says Bop, looking around the room for help.
“Fourteen!” shouts someone from backstage (I think it might be Driscoll Bleak)
“No, it’s not “£*@#&*&#% fourteen! It’s eighteen!”
“Age of consent!”
“Was it the age of consent in Victorian times?”
“Ummmmm”
And so anyway…
As Bop begins to talk about the show a hand from backstage appears, shoving a large box of chocolates under her nose..
Ah, Bopolates!
Yum, yum, yum…
As the chocolates disappear, they’re replaced with a bag of sweets… and then… an apple!
It’s a feast!
Rather like the Apothecary…
“Tonight we have an amazing smorgasbord of drag, cabaret and burlesque,” says Bop, “…and some incredibly compelling pandemonium…”
“If people are late, spank ’em for being late,” says Bop. “We like that sort of thing!”
“Now, your host for the evening… how would you like to be introduced?”
“Western Europe Muay Thai champion!”
“What?!”
“You heard!”
“He’s lying!”
“I’m not! I make Mai Thais better than anyone!”
Lol.
“Ladies and Gentlemen… here’s Driscoll Bleak!”
Driscoll Bleak strides menacingly onto the little stage: he’s tall, yes, dark, yes, handsome, yeah… but! Driscoll has a presence… and it’s a broody and alluring one. It also seems like Mr Bleak has a certain knowledge of the elderly lead-soaked chemist behind the Apothecary…
“I was a grand Earl…you can tell I’m from the 19th Century… I helped him smoke his opium!”
“Is everyone sufficiently lubed up?”
Yes!
“Ah, well in we go then! It’s time for our first act of the evening… Ladies and Gentlemen… Primrose Proper!”
Primrose Proper trots out in front of the crowd – she’s wearing a 1950s style housewife dress with a headscarf and pinny… (great outfit as it happens)
Primrose whips out a chair: writhes, no… wriggles about on it…
Wriggle, wiggle, writhing, wiggle… (say that after Gin or not Gin)
“Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones hits the speakers…
Primrose brings out a box…ooooh, what’s inside?
Is it Gold? No!
Is it Chocolates? No!
Is it The Ark of the Covenant?
No!
It’s…
A dildo!
With eyes and a bow tie!
Ha ha!
Song: “I’m so excited… and I just can’t hide it!”
T-t-t-Tease time!
The dress comes off…
Satin bra and knickers!
Primrose dances, dances, dances, round behind the chair…
Dildo time!
Up!
Down!
Up!
Down!
IN! OUT!
KABOOM!
AN EXPLOSION!
FANNY TICKERTAPE! (Good burlesque name)
And it’s all over the front row’s faces. It’s raining ticker-tape into the crowd…
And with that Primrose has vanished. Puff. Gone away.
Avanti!
Oh, there’s stage manager Kitty Petite picking up the mess… and Bop is sweeping up, too.
Driscoll: “Are there any burlesque cabaret virgins in the crowd?”
It seems there a few in the ticker taped front row…
“Ah, well here you go…”
Driscoll sprinkles glitter all over them…
“That will be with you for days!”
He’s not wrong about that! That s@£% gets everywhere!
Next up: Barry Island!
Barry wanders up to the stage through the crowd in a big white spotted cape (is it?), feather boas, a tiara… and a bag of TEETH! (see the pictures!)
It’s cute, endearing, mysterious…
But then!
Ha ha!
The psycho ‘EEEEEE-EEEEE-EEEE-EEEE’ busts out of the speakers… the cape is abandoned, thrown away, discarded… there’s a big quiff of hair, a leather biker jacket, and a necklace filled with teeth…
Big bad, big bad teeth!
BADASS DENTISTRY!
Mwahahaha!
Mwahahaha!
Music: “You’ll be a dentist!” From the Little Shop of Horrors…
Barry bounces, flings around the stage… off goes the jacket – a dentistry smock has been hidden underneath… and then that goes gaga too!
THE BIG REVEAL!
It’s a corset with teeth all over it! Big teeth, little teeth, big sharp pointy teeth… NASH NASH NASH NAW NAW NAW ARRGGHH
£$@!£@?!£%&
“Now spit!”
Ta-da!
Wow!
Fantastic.
Ah, now what’s up next? It’s….
GIN OR NOT GIN!
This is Bop’s game where she plies some kind and willing soul from the audience with a handful of test tubes filled with gin or not gin.
The tubes are ready…but who’s going to step up?
It’s a BEARDYMAN! (he’ll make more appearances later)
Bop, Booze, Beardyman… Bedevilment
Bop: “No sniffing, no sipping, just down it in one!”
Beardyman: “OK!”
And. Here. We. Go!
1st drink…gulp!
Bop!: is it Gin or not Gin?
Beardyman: Gin!
Bop!: It is gin!
2nd drink…glug!
Beardyman: Gin?
Bop!: I think so…oh no, it might be Bacardi! I think it’s Bacardi… that’s my favourite.
3rd drink…whoop!
Beardyman: Gin?
Bop!: It is gin!
4th drink… hazzah!
Beardyman: Gin!
Bop!: Yeah, that’s gin!
5th drink… ooooh!
Beardyman: That’s not gin…
Bop!: No, it’s soda water! I thought I’d give you a little mixer.
Beardyman: haha!
And that’s it! Well done Beardyman!
BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE!
Beardyman = Bearded, Boozed and Bopalicioused.
Now who is up next on the Apothecary stage?
Driscoll has snared Beardyman for some fun and games. Shenanigans, you might say.
D: “I want you to extend your finger and touch your nose…and keep doing it!”
Beardyman complies, keeps touching his nose with his finger…
As this goes on for quite some time… we’ll rejoin it later in the show!
Up next:
It’s Connor Hainsford…Motivational Speaker!
Connor appears on stage… his suit is a mess, he looks a little beaten… but his spirit is strong, unperturbed, still breathin’… Connor also has a table full of flotsam and jetsam…
aka random shit!
Now what is he going to do with himself?
Connor: “They call me Dave, Gary, Brian… Steve… they never remember my name…”
“But like my hero McHammer… you cannot touch this…”
Connor leans in closely to the front row:
“I’m going to read your fortune. What star sign are you?”
“Aries”
“Aries,” says Connor, reading from a trashy, pulpy, tabloid magazine… “You’ll have the best sex you’ve ever had, unfortunately it’ll be in a very public place…”
The Apothecary?
Voodoo Rays pizza of Dalston?
The back of the bagel place in Stoke Newington?
The suspense!
But what’s Connor up to now? He’s got some transcendental trance music going. This is like we’re being transported to Goa in the late 1990s…
“Gaze into the eyes of the person next to you and say…I love you…”
I love you.
The crowd are impassioned…love is in the air…as Connor brings his act to a close, he whips out a big blue thing (what else can we call it) and blows BIG SMOKE RINGS into the air…
Peace, tranquility…
A higher state of motivational consciousness…
Oh, who’s next?
It’s Marnie Scarlet!
Awesome! We love a bit of Marnie Scarlet.
Marnie pounces cat like onto the stage…
Killer Queen by Queen punches through the amplifiers…
Marnie’s dressed head to toe in orangey/red latex… she’s the Queen of Hearts! It’s an awesome outfit.
Marnie’s dominant, explosive…
And the latex goes flying!
FLING! FLING! FLING!
It’s flaying through the air…
And the sweat goes spraying!
SHOOP! SHOOP! SHOOP!
It’s an extravaganza of sweat and latex and sweat and latex and Queen and Marnie and mayhem and rubber and chaos and latex and madness and uberness.
And now Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen slices through the speakers..
The Queen of Hearts is on a rampage…
Latex flubbers through the air across the stage, sweat SHOWERS the front row, sweat SHOWERS the second row, sweat SHOWERS the back row… it’s a drenching of nature’s finest… and still the latex goes flying…
There’s more latex left on the stage than there is on Marnie!
The Queen of Hearts has shed her layers: latex, gummi, rubber, all of it gone…
Fantastic.
I think it’s time for an
INTERVAL!
Gin!
SECOND CAT
Driscoll: “Are you having a special time?”
Yes!
“Welcome to the stage…Layla Cherry!”
Layla’s wrapped in a black corset, dark headdress, she’s very much a majestic temptress…
Beautiful, very beautiful.
All that glitters is sumptuous, all that titters is golden.
Golden sumptuous – just like those chocolates from earlier on.
And this is a sweet and decadent performance.
1920s music with beats sashays around the room… this is all quite bewitching.
Layla moves, swishing with mystery, intrigue. She’s an elegant and enchanting hallucination in the corner of your eye… the kind that takes you on to a voyage in other worlds…
………………………..and now we’re drifting.
How glorious.
Hmm, now who or what is this that has entered the room and taken its place on stage?
It’s a tall, slim man dressed up in an elegant suit. Is he the White Knight to Driscoll Bleak’s Black Knight?
No! (well, maybe)
Anyhow
It’s Mortimer Moonbender!
Mortimer looks like he’s going on holiday with his tiny, miniature, pocket sized suitcase.
But where’s he going?
Hawaii! or is it Polynesia?
He’s been given a lei and he’s
Oh, he’s starting to take his clothes off. It’s a Mortimer Moonbender striptease!
…leg wiggle… hip shake… arse wiggle…
BOOP!
He’s down to the smalls, the Mortimer Moonbender smalls…
And now he’s gone for the sun block…
There’s glitter all over the place… he’s bronzed and twinkling like an adonis!
I say indeed!
And with that Mortimer is gone.
Oh, there’s Bop sweeping up. She likes a good sweep that Bop.
And the front row’s getting covered in glitter again…
Speaking of again, it’s Driscoll Bleak and Beardyman!
Beardyman: Nose > finger / finger > nose / nose > finger…finger>
D: “Oh stop it!”
Ha ha!
And that’s it for the finger/nose face game.
Driscoll: “Driscoll needs his medicine!”
Oh look, there’s Kitty Petite…
Now back to the games, the Apothecary has another one for us.
This time it’s Poppy Liqueur and her never ending sentence…
Hmm, now how is this going to go down?
The idea is that every one in the audience contributes a word when it comes to to their turn… the theory being that the sentence never ends…
And. So.
Go!
Japan BATMAN! Table Red GUSSET! ECHO! Echo GIN! APOTHECARY! Glitter Beer Aardvark DILDO! BOP! London Christmas Chocolate virgin family audience castle twitter dogs cats elephants madness Mariposa…
Ahhhh, the audience has run out of steam.
We have!
Better start again:
Latin hairnets holidays Spain mariachi catfight GIN! bra table drink cocktail DILDO! sex starsign tattoo arm leg penis love and down to hell…
And relax…
Ah, but we can’t because Bop has Bopped off again, hurling Haribo into the crowd as a reward for the word game:
“Haribo! Haribo for all!”
>>SHOOOOOOOOGAAAAAAAAA>>>>
We need to calm down. But there’s not much chance of that as up next is…
Lili Mirezmoi!
Lili waltzes (good expression) onto the stage… purple dress, cigarette, flower in the hair (well, you can see the picture)
Lili hitches up her skirt – WHOOP!
Unzips her dress – ZOo///!
Oh no, the zipper has got a little bit stuck!
Mortimer Moonbender rides to the rescue…
ZOO////!
ZOOOOOOOOOP!
And it’s off!
Knickers, bra, BOTTOM! Ta-da!
Lili does a little
CHA-CHA-CHA
Sultry, sexy, sassy,
Boop-boop Lili boop-boop!
And thank you!
Now for the final act…
Up steps Martin Morris with looped guitars and soulful songs… the fella has an incredible voice and sound. As we can’t put this into words so well, we’ll say: ‘Martin’s a bluesman in the body of a scientist/musician/alchemist…a man simultaneously travelling back and forward in time in search of the finest sounds known to man’.
So there we go.
Follow the link in the image below and you’ll find some music on Martin’s Facebook page to serenade you into the end of the feature…
Thank you!
Goodnight!
XX
P.S. After a few months away, it was great to be back in the loving arms of the Apothecary. Thanks for making me feel welcome yet again, and thanks for another fun show!
Photos by Rob Brazier
You can also see more photos from the night on the Apothecary Facebook
Also see:
The Apothecary: Unbirthday! The Apothecary: Celebration!
Mardi Gras Magazine 