It is not just the Sunday broadsheets who get to do serialisations. In our first foray into autobiographical recounting, we present three chapters from Zoe Charles’ debut comedy show Memoirs Of A Slutsky. Possibly better known as Lady Cheek, the burlesque artiste who turned entrepreneur and set up her own school The Cheek Of It!, she has put away the tassels for her latest appearances.
As part of the 2013 Mimetic Festival, we caught an early version of Slutsky and saw a very different side to this multi-talented performer. Shorn of the glitz and glamour of her usual stage alter ego, Charles still casts a powerful spell over the audience with her hilarious delivery of a colourful past. She is appearing this month as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival and we have managed to get our hands on exclusive extracts of the show. Here is the first part in which we meet her decidedly different mother…
“(My mother) is very spiritual, top-to-toe tiedye, with all the blinged up magic crystals and the occasional bit of homegrown on special occasions.”
The Vagina Slideshow
I’m from a massive family. There are eight of us, seven girls and only one boy, poor bugger. Now mum is a hippy and my dad is a Catholic but the only Catholic belief to make it into our household was no contraception.
So you might have thought it was my brother who felt the odd one out but it was actually me as all my sisters developed really early and had this beautiful blonde hair and massive boobs, yet I was really, really skinny, really, really pale and really, really morose and if that wasn’t bad enough, I adopted the mannerisms and fashion sense of a Victorian ghost.
I would wear a long taffeta dress and glide slowly and silently through the house, skulking through corridors staring through windows. I spent much of my time in silent mourning for the family I should’ve been part of: The Addams family. But to be fair it wasn’t far off, my mum looks a lot like Morticia from the Adams family. That or Cher on acid.
She’s an amazing woman is my mum. Originally from California, she’s very spiritual, top-to-toe tiedye, with all the blinged up magic crystals and the occasional bit of homegrown on special occasions. She’s a Mother Earth, a goddess if you will.
Not only did she bring up all us kids but she also found time to educate the local women of our town by running assertiveness courses in sexuality. After one such workshop, she appeared very excited at my bedroom door.
“Zubbit! [my nickname] Zubbit! you’ll never guess what’s in the box. Well today in sexuality class, we all took off our clothes and looked, we looked at our vaginas. And then, to honour the beauty and uniqueness of what we saw, we took photographs of our vaginas to make a vagina slide show!”
At which point she clasped her hands together with glee and asked “What do you want for dinner?” I prayed for normality to strike our household, I prayed for magnolia walls, I prayed for white bread and orange squash. What I got was lentil stew and some out-of-focus fannies.
Not long after this I got a very curious invitation from my mother. “Zubbit, I want to invite you to a very special event in my bedroom at 8 o’clock.” 8 o’clock comes and I’m stood outside my mum’s room in my taffeta. I open the door to the most peculiar scene.
There are about fifty incense sticks burning, I can hardly breathe, the muslin is hanging, cushions on the floor, the candles are lit, there’s the sound of dolphins in a lot of pain and in the middle of it all is my mother the high priestess sat crosslegged on the floor in silent meditation.
She rises from the ground like a divine goddess and says to me, “Zubbit, welcome to your womanhood ceremony.” As my mother’s face wells up with emotion and pride, she says, “I promised i wasn’t going to cry but this is a very special day for you.” She then produces a small hand mirror and says, “take this mirror and go and look at yourself. I want you to bond with yourself and appreciate how beautiful you are and if you feel like touching yourself….. That’s ok too.”
Needless to say, this put me off masturbation for nine years.
Weirdly, it was an encounter with a Mills and Boon book called The Spaniard’s Virgin Housekeeper that finally awakened my womanly urges. Which worryingly means that, despite all my mum’s efforts to sexually empower me, what really turns me on is the thought of a torrid affair, with my marigolds on and scrubbing brush in hand, with my Latino boss (who is clearly disregarding the sexual harassment policy between an employer and an employee). And for that mum, I am truly sorry but it’s a bloody good read and I highly recommend it.
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