Page 12 of What Would Dolly Do?

W hen I came up with the idea of holding an old-fashioned ‘Open Mic’ or ‘Free ‘n’ Easy’ night I figured the tickets would be free and the organisation would be pretty easy.

We weren’t charging for entrance to the bar for the show but we were aiming to make a good profit on the drinks sold during the evening.

By posting on all our updated social media accounts, putting up some colourful posters and spreading the news by word of mouth we felt sure we’d have a good selection of performers coming along.

Even if some of them were not so good I thought the crowd would still find it pretty entertaining.

After all, didn’t everyone always love the terrible early auditions on those search-for-a-star TV shows?

Free ‘n’ Easy was a phrase I’d grown up with on the old working men’s clubs circuit to encourage people to get up and have a go at singing a song, or perhaps playing the piano, way before the days of karaoke.

When I was a kid touring with my parents I often heard about the times a local would get up and belt out a showstopper and bring the house down.

It would be great to have something like that happen on our night, I thought.

I wanted to encourage that old feeling of community spirit at Sonny’s, create a place where people knew they could come and always know they would have a good time and be entertained, discover a taste of old-school showbiz in a family atmosphere.

That was my motivation for the event, but then I’d gone and added an extra degree of difficulty and a huge amount of risk by deciding to put my own name into the hat.

Stella had decided pulling names out of a hat was going to be the fairest way to pick from all the punters who showed up and I’d backed her – it would give everyone, me included, a level playing field.

‘Let everyone who wants to perform stick their name on a piece of paper, we’ll put them all in this hat,’ she said, quickly retrieving a battered, glittery bowler hat that had been knocking around in the storeroom, as a lot more people than we’d expected started to fill up the tables in the bar.

‘That way we add a bit of theatricality to proceedings when the name gets pulled out and we’re being fair.

’ I couldn’t argue on either point although Donald did question how we’d handle all the people who didn’t get their names chosen?

‘Simple, we announce we’ll be holding more nights like this and they’ll have to come back again.

’ Stella was confident and efficient and she was being a lot more enthusiastic about this night than I had expected her to be.

I hadn’t told her, or anyone else about my plan to perform as Dolly and now I couldn’t bring myself to – my name may not even get pulled out of the hat.

I would need a bit of time to get ready though if it did.

I’d stashed my stage gear under a desk in the office and I realised some other performers would also appreciate a bit of run-up time before they took their place on our little stage.

Stella agreed that names would be called in batches of three: that way anyone who needed a moment to prepare would be able to take it without us losing the momentum of the night.

With all the arrangements in place, we kicked off the night’s entertainment with a comedian called Gary Garlic – who did stink a bit at first but the audience gave him a chance and he did get much better.

That was sometimes the magic of live performance – feeding off the crowd’s energy and finding your stride.

In quick succession, there was also an elderly jazz trumpeter everyone adored and an exotic dancer named Trudie who stayed just on the right side of rudie.

Things seemed to be going well as the evening went on.

Stella was keeping track of all the performers, with a note of particular ones we might want to invite back.

There were more hits than misses, luckily, and the crowd were forgiving rather than vicious with the singers and comedians who didn’t quite make the grade.

It was a fun, joyous atmosphere, just as I’d hoped it would be.

I’d almost forgotten my name had gone into the glittery bowler until I heard Stella on the mic.

‘Next up, in no particular order prepare to welcome to Sonny’s Bar …

Jack Tinker, Gabby Wolf and … Wait … What?

… Becky Mooney ?’ Stella peered across the heads of the audience with a quizzical look on her face but the bright lights shining towards the stage prevented her from seeing my startled expression in return.

I kicked myself for not using a stage name, but then I reckoned they would have realised it was me soon enough, so I quickly got my head in the game.

It was now or never and I’d put myself up for this after all.

There was no time to explain too much to Stella, but Jack Tinker wanted to go on second so the order was sorted with comic Gabby Wolf agreeing to go on first, leaving me with the final spot.

Phew. I headed straight to the office to get ‘Dollified’ aware that Stella had barely taken her eyes off me despite Gabby having the audience in stitches from the first gag out of her mouth.

I usually had my Dolly prep down to a fine art but this night I found my hands were shaking as I began to apply bright blue eyeshadow onto my lids.

It definitely felt like there was so much more at stake than usual.

I needed to prove myself to myself, as well as the assembled punters.

Could I still bring the Dolly magic minus the Kenny content?

I didn’t have time to waste on nerves or second guessing.

Muscle memory kicked in as I fixed my wig, padded my bra and I was just pulling on a silver cowboy boot as I heard a sound that froze my country music lovin’ heart. It was the opening bars to ‘Jolene’.

I burst from the office, about to sprint to the stage.

Why the hell had Stella allowed the backing track to begin when I was not yet in position?

The answer was gobsmackingly obvious when I clocked the incredible sight before me.

Large as life and twice as buxom, Dolly Parton was already on stage.

She raised the microphone to her lips and began to sing the refrain.

It took my mind a few beats to process what was happening – there was another Dolly tribute act at the open mic session.

I’d never even considered the possibility of that happening.

I knew I wasn’t the only person to ever dress up and perform as the queen of country music but Robbie and I had felt we’d sort of cornered the local market over the last few years and we’d never encountered much competition.

I was clearly up against it now however.

This Drag Queen Dolly was good. Really good.

Her voice was strong and her outfit was an eye-catching red, white and blue Stars and Stripes jacket and matching mini skirt.

By the time Dolly got to the bit about Jolene’s red hair and green eyes I was finding something a bit odd about the performance.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at first but there was something unusual about it that was bothering me.

It wasn’t just professional jealousy and disappointment, although I was certainly feeling that too.

That wasn’t what was clouding my judgement, honestly it wasn’t.

Suddenly I realised what I was finding so strange about the sight before me in the spotlight, Dolly was standing side on to the audience so we could only see her left-hand profile.

Right at the moment I worked out what was weird it all got a whole lot more bizarre.

The backing music changed. ‘Jolene’ segued into ‘Islands in the Stream’.

Wondering how she was going to handle a duet, I looked towards the restrooms to see where this Dolly’s Kenny Rogers was about to spring from to join in with the next part of the medley.

Would it be another Amazonian diva striding out?

But there was no one else heading to the stage to perform.

Dolly suddenly spun on the spot, switching the profile she was showing to the audience to her right-hand side.

In a flash, Dolly in all her gaudy Americana was gone and in her place was a silver-haired singer with a full beard and a light blue suit.

Dolly and Kenny were one person! It was a neat trick and the crowd whooped and laughed as Dolly/Kenny sang their duet.

Jack Tinker’s quirky drag act was not going to be something I would be able to follow with my run-of-the-mill solo spot.

I felt my heart sink and a tidal wave of disappointment crash over me.

I had to get back into the office and get my second-rate Dolly garb off before anyone spotted me lurking at the back of the room.

Luckily all eyes were on Jack, or ‘Dolly Partly’ as he introduced himself to the crowd who were lapping it all up.

‘Shit!’ I muttered to myself, Dolly Partly had funny banter as well as a totally original gimmick. There really was no hope and I was now desperate to escape.

I took a big step backwards keeping my eyes on the increasingly brilliant performance as ‘Kenny’ sang a few lines warning Ruby not to take her love to town while ‘Dolly’ hilariously interjected with sections of ‘Here You Come Again’. It really was a great act.

No one was taking any notice of me, thank goodness, as I stepped back further, but the heel of my cowboy boot landed firmly on the toe of someone standing right behind me.

‘Arrgghh!’

‘I’m so sorry.’ I hissed my apology as I whirled around to face a man who had crept up behind me in the darkness.

‘You!’

‘Yet another warm welcome. I really should take the hint, shouldn’t I, darlin’?’ Tom Coltrane winced as he limped towards the back wall. Unbelievably I had injured him for a third time.

My horror was further compounded as the famous singer who kept on getting under my feet looked me up and down, taking in everything from the bright blonde bouffant wig to the tip of my one silver western boot. He then flicked his eyes towards the stage and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘What’s all this? Double Dolly night? I didn’t realise a Dolly drag dress code was compulsory.’

‘It isn’t!’ I was still hissing at him as I shoved him towards the office door just behind us.

I couldn’t afford to create a scene at this moment.

If the rest of the audience spotted me now it would be excruciating.

I had no desire to die a thousand Dolly deaths by attempting to follow the storming set Dolly Partly was delivering.

Tom sort of stumbled backwards and we both landed in the back office so I was able to close the door on the crowd now lustily singing along with ‘9 to 5’.

My audacious manoeuvre had succeeded in removing the risk of me being seen or of anyone noticing me and a famous singer having a heated exchange of whispered words but, as usual, I hadn’t thought through the consequences.

I was now trapped in a very small space half-dressed as a poor man’s tribute act while Tom looked in astonishment from the closed door and back to me.

I could tell he was beginning to figure out the sorry situation.

‘I take it what’s going on out there has ruined your big moment a bit then?’

He spoke slowly, with a Southern drawl more suited to Alabama than Aberdeen but his mind was quick, I’d give him that, though he clearly hadn’t got a clue how painful this was as he stood there mocking me.

‘Something like that, yeah,’ I conceded grumpily as I wrenched the blonde wig from my hair.

I pulled off the lone silver cowboy boot and stood there in my stockinged feet trying desperately to appear dignified in my pink tasselled suede two-piece.

It just couldn’t be done while my boobs were pointing straight at him like a pair of helium-filled barrage balloons.

Tom’s eyebrows shot sky high as I reached inside my jacket and swiftly removed two foam domes.

‘That’s quite an act you have there. What d’you do for an encore?’

The temptation to either burst into tears or swear at him profusely was doing battle inside me but then I caught the look in his eye.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The whole thing was obviously so ridiculous and he looked pretty amused too.

You know when you try and laugh quietly it just makes everything so much funnier?

Well, that’s what happened. We suddenly found ourselves clutching at each other, shushing and giggling until I was gasping for breath.

‘Oh, oh … stop it, we need to pull ourselves together.’ I was wiping my eyes.

‘Well you could try but most of you is all over the floor.’ Tom nodded his head in the direction of my hair piece and the false boobies lying at our feet and that set us both off all over again.

It was the sound of the crowd cheering the end of Dolly Partly’s storming set and Stella taking over on the mic getting all ready to announce me that stopped our laughter in its tracks. Tom saw the look of pure panic on my face and made a swift decision.

‘You stay here, I’ll handle this, honey,’ he announced and I was pathetically grateful and confused all at once.

He was offering to help me: that was something I wasn’t used to.

And he’d also called me honey: I wasn’t used to that either.

No one had ever called me ‘honey’ before but somehow with that cowboy-style way of talking it didn’t feel patronising.

Instead I found it sort of friendly and possibly even a bit flirty?

Tom read the mixed emotions on my face and leaned in close.

‘I can pull focus so no one wonders where you are, I have the technology.’ With that he swung a guitar from behind his back where he’d been carrying it as a rucksack.

‘I’ll be the surprise act you booked to close the show,’ he said with a wink and just before heading out of the door and up onto the Sonny’s Bar stage he leaned in close and kissed me softly on my hot, pink cheek .