Iestyn Edwards Wonders...is it Lumpy or Runny?

No, no to the venue staff at the Pleasance, Edinburgh, being able to pull Jerry Sadowitz's show because it doesn't 'align with their values'.   During Jack and the Beanstalk, in 204, one of my Dame Trott costumes was late out of the workshop.  It was a beehive.  There was a nylon thread attached, but because of the bulge in the beehive, I couldn't see where this thread led to or what happened when it got there.   Wearing the new costume, I went onstage to meet the King, played by Brendan Coach Trip Sheerin.  The King's coach had broken down.  Brendan's opening line was, 'Hello, my good woman, I bet you'd like to help with my big end and lubricate my dipstick.'   I pulled my thread.  Brendan looked down.  Apparently, I had just opened a tiny drawbridge in the lower part of the hive.   Innocently, he said, 'Is that your flap where honey comes out?' The adults out front giggled, tensed for my reply.  I said right to...

        Regimental Sergeant Major 'Pam' Ayres emailed me when I was just back from performing in Iraq.   Iestyn my mate, you are truly barking as a turn and I don’t know how you do it, particularly where you’ve just been.  I was surprised to say the least when I heard what you were to be about in the wilds of Iraq.  But I suppose you have little choice but to carry on with it because of the scarcity of Rest Homes for Retired Sugar Plums.  Perhaps you could find one, however, and have a little lie down over Christmas?   Thank you for your kind information that I have been mentioned in interviews you’ve given to the Mail on Sunday , T he Times and whatever Full House Magazine may be.     I would, however… RATHER  READ THE FUCKING  BEANO !!! Take care, kid.  Best...Pam   '...whatever  Full House Magazine  may be...'    Therein lies a tail...   'The phone's  in Major Flynn’s ...

  A woman with wiry, flicked hair, in a pink vinyl mac, and gingham pedal pushers came through from Thorpeness Meare, leaving her jack russell off the lead as she continued past the duck pond. Three pairs of nesting swans and the egyptian geese were grazing there. The woman turned as people remonstrated with her, then stood in a bevelled pose, like a resting burlesquer, and indicated that she was happy for her jack russell to run to and fro barking by the water's edge.  The goose nosed the tiny gosling into the pond and jumped in after it followed by the gander. The swans stood absolutely still, feathers up all around, in front of their cygnets.    The woman smirked indulgently at the jack russell, until a man picked the dog up by the collar, walked over to her and thrust it into her arms.  ' Take this back to wherever it is you're from!' he told her. After a stunned moment, the woman loped off across the grass, drawling back over her shoulder, 'Crouch...

  The Simpson's annual pop up summer bistro in East Suffolk went vegan the year Francis Quentin-Curnow was six.    Francis had apparently been born gluten and lactose intolerant and with IBS. His wasn't cradle cap so much as Intensive Care Baby Incubator cap. By the time he was four he was asthmatic, eczmatic, diabetic; rivalling pure violet light for taking up space on the spectrum. Aged five he asked to go in the carnival procession as Anne Frank. The following year he announced that he was vegan, please.  On the QT that year, Gerard Crastley - whose grandmother, Lady Simpson, remember, made him spell out long words, as he went to the wrong school: Harrow rather than Eton - encouraged Francis to adopt a yak. Daphne, Gerard's mother, was Francis's godmother.  'You adopt the nice yak, chap, and you get a photo and it will write you letters,' said Gerard.  'What joy, eh?  The yak is being endangered to death, Quent,  And it's not a quick death - as...

  An oh so proud, pre-plague moment.  Hosting the Dance for Victory Ball at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom.   'After sound check, you have a query out front,' said stage management, pointing.  'Her over there. She's been too difficult even for the circus archivists.' Her over there was a woman with a waved combover, in a sequined puffa jacket, nylon culottes and pink trainers. Wafting Lily of the Valley and carbolic.  'You may have seen my quick step earlier to the Wurlitzer.'  She was giving me an undecided look, her tone no-crap librarian.  'Every Wednesday I've danced here since before even my mother passed on. To the Wurlitzer only when practicable.'   Spiralling her right wrist at me, she said, 'Now, I've got these three expected carrier bags.  In this first one: Happy Shopper vodka. Not paying your bar prices. In two - shrimp that were Morecambe-bought, home-self-potted. In three - glad rags. So, I'll thank you to tell me your ...

                         Filming for C4. "Madame Galina's Whirlwind Guide to Ballet". 'Spectacular and eccentric...More! More!!' Daily Mail .  'Lovingly tart!' The Rough Guide to Choreograph y.  'Essential viewing.' Evening Standard . And, during filming, from the general series producer: 'Iestyn, we are very sorry you got a poorly foot today, but please don't send the director off the set again for - as you view her - being a complete cretin, misfilming your pirouette sequence six "shi*ting" times. We could perhaps discuss your stance that it's "completely mental to employ her to make a humorous piece about ballet, when she's humour less and knows f-ck all about dance". We can't comment on her having a supercilious spoon-face.' You win some...

I would visualise and visualise Madame Galina on tour to London's West End and to Blackpool: wearing a fur, dragging a trunk, staying in old-school theatrical digs, being partnered by either Michael Nunn or William Trevitt: both Royal Ballet Principal Dancers... About to move to London from Aldeburgh, I was walking past the Sue Ryder shop when volunteer Janet banged on the window.  Can you imagine Bette Midler, but mouselike?  That was Janet. She dragged a blue trunk out of the stockroom.  'Don't open it till you get home.  Inside's for you to wear as Madame Galina.  Brilliant you've got yourself that London residency.'  At Murray's Cabaret Club. 'My aunt forbade us girls ever to go on to Murray's in the sixties, you know. "Filth goes in there!  The Krays, that Keeler monstrosity. Filth!".' Oh. At home I opened the trunk.  Inside was a rabbit skin fur.  For cheapness' sake on tour, I would book myself into the class of B and B ...

  Xiuying, Chinese herbalist, said she must send for Mr Yong and get a second opinion on my worrying tongue. ‘What is it your job, please?’ she had asked, once I was lying still and not rustling the paper sheet on the cot. ‘And give me your wrist fully.’ I told her, ‘I’m a character actor with ballet skills.’ ‘And what are you performing just now? A sad, distressed character?’ ‘Yes, in my comedy show  Ballet Star Galactica , I play Giselle. A peasant girl, who is jilted, goes insane and kills herself.’ Xiuying clicked her own tongue a number of times — worrying — then asked, ‘Do you like having a kidney function, even a kidney function that’s not very good? Then you must stop performing this thing.’ ‘I can’t cancel tomorrow’s gig. I’m in Leigh-on-Sea.  Back by Popular Demand .’ That was spin — actually, I’d just hired the Methodist Hall again. ‘Can’t I just have herbs?’ I’d had them before. They tasted like melon, Christmas pudding and fox shit. ‘Everyone can have herbs,’...

I've been offered one of these.  A jardinière.  For my fire escape.   The last time I heard the word 'jardinière' was on video messenger during lockdown.  I was chatting to my mate Finch Loudet, porn actor turned director.   He said that only cohabiting porn couples were able to work under the lockdown rules. On OnlyFans. Often asking subs to send in sex-suggestions. Four days into lockdown, apparently, the subscribers were past requesting pegging, turd play and zombie necrophilia, and instead were commenting, ‘Bit of Vanish Oxy when you next wash the sheets’; ‘Your bedside rug has been turned up in that one corner since Monday’, ‘Forget golden showers between yourselves, you need to water that jardiniere.’ #jardiniere #gardening #pornography #goldenshowers #necrophilia #zombies #lockdown 

  An excerpt from my forthcoming book of interviews: Where Babies Come From. I asked people, ‘How were you told the facts of life?’ And, ‘What information were you given?’ Here is Belinda, who used to be an escort. She is now in her eighties. My sister read about Dutch caps. We looked at Old Masters paintings and wondered how having those funny big white hats on their heads would stop women getting pregnant. In British Guiana, we had native servants who would do the deed al fresco au natural.  From the age of five, I was playing sex with my dolls.  They’d have their dolls’ tea party, a recitation lesson, then I’d have them mount each other. When we came back to England, I had a nanny.   Katrin was fresh from the convent. She was all mummy could get for me.  I expect it was a time of general strikes.  Mummy would send Katrin for breaks back to the convent meanwhile sending me for remedial elocution.  This would happen when I’d said one too many ‘ti...

  The year before the plague, I opened the Essex Book Festival with My Tutu Went AWOL .  I also closed the festival (just call me the Maria Callas of touting the memoir subgenre Drag Meets Marine.)  Patricia Wells, author, also appeared in the closing event: playing the hose continuo.  I met Patricia again at Wilderness. Having just appeared in Brunch Cabaret, in full tutu and tights, I ran across the festival grounds to the book tent for my Travel Writing round table.  A smell of beer, hay, new books and what comedian Archie Artington describes as, ‘A tang, is it, or a pang – not quite a pong – the tang that after a weekend under tent: of dawn and dusk wet-wipe licks and promises: creeps from campers’ crannies.’ To stage left, the round table set up, mic feedback being rectified; to stage right Dorling Kindersley executives berating Clara (BSc MBAcC RYT) for, ‘Such heinously undermining snoring.’ Apparently, Clara, festival book curator, had fallen asleep ...