After a few days of furtive meetings, borrowed costumes and construction of props being made like we were on a Scrapheap Challenge programme, the night of the Gala performance held in Nellie’s own opera house aka the bar had arrived and at 2000hrs the fun and frivolity, mirth and mayhem and madness commenced.
To show appreciation of each performance we handed round a bucket in which we were asked to contribute to help raise money for Nellie and her upkeep – of course, in true busking fashion this was either to encourage “Encore!”or in some special cases “Nul Points!” Whoever raised the most funds by foul means or fair was considered the winner.
It seemed like a line up from Britain’s Got Talent, and since we are GirlGuides, singing was guaranteed! We had been promised a variety of songs, sketches and prose – and an open mike opportunity for those who find their voices at the end of the night.
Kicking off the night was the Permanent Crew (consisting of Rachel (Eng), Marcin and Gudrun with the International Grey squirrel song-which had us all in stitches as Marcin proceeded to ‘scamper’ into the bar, then jumped ON the bar, startling Nursey and got a pack of peanuts in his mouth!
Having been assigned the difficult task of following that excellent act, the 2nd Mate, Chris serenaded us with song, which described the female form in an interesting way! Later on, assisted by Rachel, Alex (2nd Eng) and Marcin (who dressed like a woman!) sung “Master of the House” from Les Miserables complete with dirty apron, t-shirt and blackened teeth!
The Sextets (FS)Dinah’s watch then came on and it was apparent that they had dressed up as the Permanent Crew, as there were a few familiar pieces of clothing (e.g. Cookie’s top, Gudrun’s headscarf!) They used the tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” but with a nautical twist of course!
Next was The Four Candles (FP) Bridget’s watch – the ‘Shopping for tea-cups sketch’ and this involved Joanna very cleverly roping in some members of the Permanent Crew as props – well, ‘mugs’ actually!
We thought the only mysteries on board were what came out of the galley – well we were impressed not only by Cookie’s VERY sparkly trousers, but also by the mysterious telepathy demonstrated ‘The Amnesic Cook and his cook’s assistant Telepathic Tazz’
Next came ‘Breaking News’ by ‘Watch Awesome (AP)Margaret’s watch, which consisted of Malaika reading out the ‘news’ using her hearing-aid radio-aid as a microphone and the team coming in as news items, including the largest EVER tub of “mysterious sauce” aka mayonnaise! as well as an excellent 2 man (or woman in this case) weather report, which was similar to the Mars bar game for those Guiders out there in the know!
The skit ‘Ship.com’ produced by Leigh’s watch aka the ‘Tall Sheep’s’ sketch was a shadow puppet story of a sheep looking for love and finding it on Nellie. The puppets/cutouts were all handmade by Amy and Janet so well done to them.
Lastly, there was a special request by Nursie for Louise’s rendition of Three Little Bears-which in the end won the competition and her singing is beautiful, so was a well deserved winner.
But the real winner was Nellie in that we raised over £80.00 J
The singing carried well on to the evening and included Lexy/Louise teaching Cookie Dum-dum-di-di AGAIN! But this time, it was recorded for future reference! We learnt a couple of new songs from Louise, had Rachel (Eng) sing Caledonia for all the Scots on board, learnt the Milk one from Mhairi and had Dinah strum us to sleep by playing the guitar! A great night was had by all and I think I may try something like this with my Guides to see if we can help fundraise for Nellie too.
Malaika – Medical Purser for the day.
P.S. YES, you’ve guessed it – we’ve been taken over by the girl guides filling the roles of the permanent crew, and very well done to them all! (Rachel – currently ex-MP!)