Iestyn Edwards is...what?

  Here’s my audiobook for you.   Will you buy? Click here It’s self-narrated: with songs, adlibs and bloopers as standard. ‘Achingly funny!’ Daily Mail ‘A book unlike any other, of a story unlike any other. Totally mad, very funny and highly recommended.’ ***** Dr Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt: the Nation’s Favourite Book Guardian Here’s the story… I sang in private formally for Queen Elisabeth ii on HMS Victory , and then accidentally auditioned to take my drag ballerina act out to entertain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In full tutu. When I realised my mistake, I thought I’d go anyway. Cut to: with tutu and tiara in a Primark bag, me arriving bedraggled in Basra. As Stacks, the Royal Marines Commando, commented: ‘Being flown out to one of the big two — Iraq and Afghanistan — is like you’ve been beamed down off the Starship Enterprise, and this time Scotty’s got the coordinates well and truly buggered!’ I went from this:         ...

'Brian the verger snapped at me after I tried gently to tell him the church was too cold for a first communion. And of course I didn't want to be physically rude back.' 'Look at the world around you. Where do you see glimmers of the divine?' 'You get to his age, and life is a process of getting gradually slower and smellier.' 'I've seen a harelip recently and someone with boss eyes. I thought we'd all but eradicated such things?  It'll be an urchin in callipers next.' 'Bus driver couldn’t say to me about changes of route but my mate in Radwinter had forewarned me she could feel them coming on.' 'Venus is in Aries. So don't flush your sinuses.' 'Judd doesn't understand the neck bit of his apron again.' 'He looks like he might be married to her. He's got a Mini-Filofax.' 'We toasted her teacake so fast we were wandering around announcing for someone to claim it and she was still in the queue t...

'I saw the saddest little thing on a date leaf in a library book. "Judy. I’m writing my name because I have nothing and I’m beside myself to own something. Even just till the last date stamped".'  'Why would you let him put ointment on your back ribs if you didn't ask for it? I doubt you’d be even that casual when it came to putting custard on an Eccles Cake.' 'The electrician you sent me says he's got the same problem today - Thursday - that he had on Tuesday – and shouldn't have stayed in Cromer beyond Friday.' 'Her new at your pharmacy can't read the doctor's handwriting to such a lesser extent, I’m tempted to try all my latest medicines at the counter, and wait while they take effect for better or worse.' 'Oh, you’d be surprised.  There's a lot of people that go and sing in choirs on the quiet.' 'Remember the flurry of Naomis named after the round the yacht woman?  Then they died off. Like the onset of Au...

'Famous actors don't need to dress like famous actors. Apart from Simon Callow always seems to.' 'She smells like she hasn't actually had that winter coat out as much as needed.' 'Christopher, you can't possibly know that Sea Salt won't have a man's fragrance.' 'None of us on the till thought it was possible to override the take away drinks machine and do an oat milk hot chocolate. But Little Mary went on a mission. Sally and Big Mary were looking on, to see how Little Mary managed it. I stayed out of the way - didn't want any part, sorry. Took ever so long. Janice buttered at least three crusty rolls in the meantime.  'When she handed the drink over Little Mary asked the customer if it was okay - it being a bit of a freak beverage - and he said it wasn't as hot as it could be, but that meant it wouldn't over-melt the marshmallow on his Easter Bunny biscuit, would it?  'Mary said, "All's well that ends well, t...

At the station, Eirwen was standing beneath the Suffolk in Bloom prize-winner sign. She had shrunk again. I was waiting in the car. Gerard, picking up her suitcase (she gave him a  Don’t expect a tip look) congratulated her on the win.  She frowned. He pointed upward at the sign. She saw and said, ‘Oh, are we thinking that’s funny?’ Walking to the car Gerard asked what he should call her? ‘Mrs Edwards. Or Ms Silcox, my maiden name.’ I said, ‘And you can call him, The Right Honourable Gerard Crastley.’ Passing Eirwen’s case behind me, Gerard said, ‘Thank God one day Lord will at least be shorter.’  He didn’t see Eirwen’s disgusted look.  She waited for him to turn round so he could.  ‘Have you got anything special planned, or just seeing your special son,' he asked, driving onto the High Street.  ‘I don’t know what there is to be done here at all.’ ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I told you.’ To try and make her refuse to come. ‘Very quiet.’ I had invited her to stay ...

Twice, a week or so before starting a house-sitting stint, I went to spy out the multiple dogs that would be in my care. Between that reccy and the owners going away one of the dogs in each of the households died.  I imagined the pitiful horror of (me) having been the one to find the canine corpse; running to fetch someone. Who exactly? The canine police and/or canine coroner? Agonising between contacting the owners and ruining their holiday, or waiting for them to come back and the news immediately jettisoning the effect of any rest and enjoyment. Lurching about in distress like Lady Macbeth sleep walking.  Or Maria Callas in Tosca , having killed Scarpia, searching for Cavaradossi’s free pardon. Or – perhaps most dramatically - Hilda Ogden leaving the Street to a chorus in the Rover’s of “Wish me Luck as you Wave me Goodbye”.  Phew, frankly, that Mim and Tonto died pre-me.  The shock would almost certainly have brought on an asthma attack, bells palsy, a phantom mi...

I have perhaps tended to boast that I have the widest range of fees for my work, because I cater to the widest range of possible employers. For example, I have a £50 Zoom talk booked tonight for My Tutu Went AWOL! the talk and a Madame Galina Ballet Star Galactica cabaret set at a party in February 2027 for £1,500.  Perhaps I should have kept quiet about the more lower end fees. But then, thoughts speak to the universe.  It all wants thinking of more carefully.