Burlesque Showreel, Act 2

The second effort in my ongoing project to while away the quarantine by filming a showreel of my burlesque solos. I finally accede to popular pressure and choreograph a vampire routine, with homage to a certain classic 1980s film. This is not quite the debut I wanted for this act, but it is what it...

Steamboat Ellie

It took a little time (bearing in mind I wrote the thing back in 2015), but with huge thanks to the wonderful Megan Pritchard (AKA fellow burlesque dancer Flossie Smalls) for her awesome cover design, my steampunk fantasy novel is at last good to go... ************ The vengeful, disfigured Gloriana - rebel fay queen and...

“A strength badly exerted” – Rousseau, Radicalism, and Repression in the Works of P. B. Shelley

Something a little unusual for this blog - This is an academic article I wrote back in late 2013, revised in 2015, then forgot about after the e-journal it was intended for vanished off the face of the interwebs never to resurface. Since I absolutely cannot be bothered with the rigmarole of trying to find...

Music Review – “Vamp” (Jake Perrine, 2001)

I was introduced to this Gothic rock-opera by a friend several years ago, rediscovered it recently, and was amazed how much influence from it had seeped into my own work: in particular, its villain-protagonist Alexandra has more than a little in common with the antagonist of "Wolves of Dacia." That being so, and since I...

Extended Halloween …

How curious. Halloween has never figured too heavily on my calender until this year, which - between various horror-themed burlesque shows and alt-80s nights - may have been the Gothiest year of my life, and the extended Halloween is not quite over yet ... Yes, I am still a writer, even if I have rather...

Fan-tom of the Opera

Quicker than I had supposed, the videos of last Saturday's burlesque gig are on YouTube, including my solo debut ... (all rather risqué, I should stress, just in case you happen to be reading this post in the office) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cypbczMyPAU I cannot overemphasise how wonderful if surreal it is finally getting to see this. I...

Book Review – “Ghostkin” (Ellen Mellor, 2018)

"Ghostkin" works from a premise that will be instantly familiar to fans of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer": an inextricable collision between the otherworld and the mundane world has forced history (since the 20th century) down an alternative route in which humans have been forced to coexist with fay, demons, spirits, and various undead horrors. However,...

Music Review – “Arboles Lloran Por Lluvia” (Helena Tulve, 2014)

I first encountered Helena Tulve’s work by accident, while searching through my local library’s depressingly small collection of female classical composers. A copy of her 2008 album “Lijnen” was all that this search yielded, although it justified the effort with its starkly beautiful, free-form works: part audio poetry or storytelling, part sound-scapes, each piece feeling...

Dark Tarot Shoot

Another threshold crossed on the path to recovery: I have done my first photoshoot post-surgery. The photographer was Dark Venice from Purpleport, and the theme, nicely utilising my own Wiccan leanings, was dark versions of the Tarot cards. The location was Tinkinswood Burial Chamber: a Neolithic site just outside Cardiff which made the perfect pagan...

Perils of Persephone

Rather quicker than I had expected, there are now videos of my latest burlesque show with Cardiff Cabaret Club (Yin and Yang show, June 22nd 2018). Thus, as requested, my better judgement notwithstanding, here is exhibit A. I am the suspect at the very far right of the scene, on the dancefloor. Please be forgiving...