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The Diva MO




  At last night's gig, when I needed to concentrate on checking my tutu rigging in the mirror backstage or on double checking sound and lighting cues, I was having my ear bent about a certain cabaret producer. The one who owes me so many back payments, I'm putting him down on my HMRC form as a tax-deductible dependant.  He's now blacklisted by the gay community, oh my god, how tragic is that? They're so sick of his madness, recidivism and those hats. I know - the one with the peak, what's that about? Next a showgirl flapped over to piercingly shriek at me how I ought to have forewarned her that the squaddie I'd fixed her up with on a date (that didn't go well) was upstairs in the green room and she'd just walked in and not known he was going to be there, and she wasn't doing her special walk and didn't have any makeup on and was just wearing her old sweater and jeans and Ugg Boots and her hair wasn't done and a nail-job was overdue. And...
  And when I went on for my act all too soon afterward, there was no lighting set, my mic wasn't in the stand and my tutu was undone on the far side of its undercarriage and fell down during my pirouettes. 
    The great soprano Jessye Norman would send memos ahead to venues stating, amongst other things, that staff must not speak to her unless she had spoken to them.  This sounds way too diva, but I could have done with adopting her MO last night, frankly.

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