I won't remember which dress you wore

As part of Camden & Islington LGBT History Month, on Sunday we went to see the incomparable Miss Tiffaney Wells ("the Jewish Princess") - a drag artiste with possibly the biggest and best array of costumes in the business - performing a selection of showtunes, in a venue that (thankfully) still retains the aura and faded glamour of "old Soho" - the fabled Phoenix Artist Club, hosted for decades by the legendary theatrical queen Maurice Huggett until his death in 2011.



Here is Miss Wells herself (filmed at the venue while we were there), giving her magnificent tonsils some exercise on two great numbers...

I Won't Send Roses:


Le Jazz Hot

Tiffaney Wells - Le Jazz Hot

Splendid stuff, you will agree. Thank heavens for old-school drag singers, I say!

Tiffaney Wells website.

Phoenix Artist Club

Faded to Grey

"I was the freak of the village, long before Matt Lucas started doing those sketches. I was banned from school but I was a grade A student. It was ridiculous. I wasn't going to be a rugby player and I wasn't going to go down the pit, I was a creative spirit and so I ran away."

"I [became] known as the strictest door whore in London!"

"I don’t think there’s anything as pioneering now as there was in the ‘80s... [The] whole Blitz scene was incredibly pioneering. No one was doing what we were doing."

It is a very sad day for those of us who lived through that magical era that was the early 80s - dressing-up to go to the most selective of clubs, the mix of electronica and (Northern) soul dance music, the carefree toying with the notion of "style" as an antidote to punk, the outpouring of artistic creativity not seen since the rise of David Bowie and Roxy Music - for the man who did more than any other to bring us that world is dead.

Rest in peace, Mr Steve Strange. We all owe you an incredible debt of gratitude.

Steven John Harrington, aka Steve Strange (28th May 1959 - 12th February 2015)

Chica, Chica Boom Chic

"More affectionate than a kiss is a well done hug in someone that you love. Have you ever notice how I can give delicious hugs?"

"Hollywood, it has treated me so nicely, I am ready to faint! As soon as I see Hollywood, I love it."

"Look at me and tell me if I don't have Brazil in every curve of my body."

"I have never followed what people say it is 'fashionable'. I think that a woman must wear what fits her. That is why I created a style appropriated to my type and my artistical genre."

"Knock one banana off my head and I will make of you de flat pancake!"

Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, better known as Carmen Miranda (9th February 1909 – 5th August 1955)

PS In my head, that is how I enter every room...

You've come a long way, baby

Eddie Redmayne, former model.

His cheekbones won a BAFTA. Or something.

We're all packed for our holiday...

...with accessories courtesy of Ruven Afanador and his ladies, of course.

On the Jukebox this week at Dolores Delargo Towers

...we're counting down the days till our holiday.

Chin a little higher, dear

"Ah, Hastings, you are full of the charitable feelings for the young ladies who are beautiful, hmmm? As for me, I am always full of the charitable feelings to the old ladies that have the maladies." - Hercule Poirot

"Yes, quite as I expected. There are distinct social possibilities in your profile. The two weak points in our age are its want of principle and its want of profile. The chin a little higher, dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. " - Lady Bracknell

David Suchet, who portrayed Agatha Christie's fictional Belgian detective for a quarter of a century, will play Oscar Wilde's Lady Bracknell in a new West End production of The Importance Of Being Earnest this summer.

This could be interesting...

The Importance Of Being Earnest will be at the Vaudeville Theatre from 24th June to 7th November 2015.