Infertility Myths: 5 things that the Babied say to the Babyless

1) Myth: Have more sex and you’ll be cured.

Truth: Those of us who struggle with our fertility aren’t frigid. Nor do we have learning difficulties. We are fully aware that babies don’t get dropped by a daredevil stork with a bandana. Our man could rub up against us enough times for his willy to produce a kindly genie in a turban, and for our fannies to actually fall off, and it still wouldn’t result in conception – if we have fertility issues.

2) Myth: If you give up wine/coffee/peas/soya/rhubarb (the list of unofficial contraceptives I’ve been warned of is endless), it’ll happen.

Truth: One word. Heroin.
People have healthy babies on a diet of Heroin for breakfast, Heroin for lunch, and Heroin for dinner. So forgive me if I struggle with believing my toffee-nut latte is going to be putting Durex out of business any time soon.

3) Myth: It’s Fate. Fate has decided that you should not have a baby. Fate is some benign, all-seeing, all-knowing force, who elegantly swooshes in and out of homes, delivering karma in enigmatically gift-wrapped ways.

Truth: If Fate does exist then I suspect she’s a long-haired hippy who overdid it in the 60s. She smells of patchouli, and whiskey. And BO. She wears a pashmina and crushed velvet skirt. She hobbles around with a broken crystal ball, and points her knobbly, dirty fingers at those who least deserve it: ‘Yes, you, the 14 year old homeless girl getting your barely-pubescent-body battered by a man twice your age who can’t understand the word ‘no’: a baby is just what you need. But you, lady with a house and a husband, yes you sobbing on the bathroom floor because you want a baby so badly it hurts to even breathe, you shall remain childless.’ Yep. If your friend Fate does exist, then she’s one stupid f&£ker. And it’s time for her to step down.

4) Myth: There’s a lesson to be learned, by the alpha-female in question. We’ve all met her. She’s in the gym by 5 am, hammering her body into skinny submission on the cross trainer. She’s in work by 6.30, impeccably dressed in a starched shirt and pencil skirt, clutching her Tupperware container of superfood seeds. Expensive Italian expresso runs around her veins where her blood should be. The alpha female is an uber-controlled functioning anorexic with a list of achievements as long as an umbilical chord. The alpha female struggles to let go, to chill-out. The alpha female needs a lesson in how to relax. Let’s give her a few years of infertility. That’ll teach her.

Truth: Bollocks. Will you never be able to forgive Eve for that apple-eating fiasco? Are you still trying to find a way to make it all the female’s fault? As a woman who only buys clothes that don’t need ironing, rolls out of bed just in time for whatever work I’m doing that day (I’ll have to check on the way where I’m supposed to be), a person so happy to lose control to others that I live in a house my husband chose without me, a girl who knows how to relax so well she could count ‘pyjamas and box-set’ under the hobbies section in a job application, I can say with utter confidence: Boll. Ocks. Infertility does not just happen to the alpha female. And the only lesson to be learned is how to disguise tears in various, imaginative ways (a reaction to cheap mascara, and an allergy to jalapeño peppers being two of my personal favourites).

5) Myth: Chill out and it’ll happen.

Truth: Not going to lie, this one makes me want to stick a pencil in your eye. Just a little bit. We didn’t just wake up one morning and say, ‘Oh, I feel really stressed out and pent up that I won’t be able to have a baby.’ We started out gloriously, naively convinced, like you, that it would ‘just happen’ one day. But after hundreds and hundreds of ‘one days’ where we woke up and it hadn’t just happened, that pesky little human heart we carry around started to beat that syncopated little beat that whispers ‘stress’ all day long. And guess what doesn’t help? You telling us that it’s because we’re stressed that it isn’t happening…

This is dedicated to the women crying on bathroom floors all over the world, and to their dumbass friends, who are desperately trying to help, but end up spouting insulting shite instead. We know you don’t mean it, and we still love you.

Kelly Rickard
Nov 2014

Do They Know it’s Christmas?

My head and my heart have had a bit of a fall-out, and Bob Geldof is to blame.

Forget the elephant in the room, the irony here is so big and brutal it’s more like the bull in the room. Lots of beautiful, ‘blessed’, tax-avoiding celebs getting together and playing with auto-tune in a bid to show they care for the poverty-stricken and terminally ill, in a country they passed over once in their private jets. I get it. It leaves a taste as bitter as burnt garlic on your tongue.

And the lyrics. Holy Crap. The lyrics. From ‘the world of plenty’ they keep mentioning (where is this world? Because a lot of people I know seem to be on the bones of their bottoms relying on the Wonga W@@kers to get them through to pay day), to the Ebola references that we’re supposedly meant to sing along to while tucking into some inevitably, dubiously pink Turkey, and hoping for the best come Boxing Day. ‘Do they know it’s christmas?’ Well, yes, probably, seen as a lot of them are Christian, but I wouldn’t have thought popping into John Lewis to p-p-pick up a cuddly penguin is high on their list of priorities.

And the singing. Ellie Emphysema Goulding, God love her, having to take a breath after every word, struggling her way to the end of her phrase. Tonight, thank God it’s her, instead of them (see what I did there?). Because she’d be screwed over in Africa. No asthma inhalers over there for her.

But, here’s the rub. My head knows all this, it knows, but my heart, oh my poor betraying heart, bloody LOVES the song.

I was 4 when the original came out, Santa existed in a very real sense to me, and our living room was my whole world. My big brother, who was sporting some pretty nifty 80s facial hair at the time, bought me a gigantic orange teddy bear that I loved with all the ferocity a four year old can muster.

I hear the song and I’m back there in an instant. I remember singing ‘feed the world’ as hard as my little larynx would allow, and dancing around with Orange Ted (the very original name I gave him). Believing that if I learned every word and danced long enough and sang hard enough then Santa would have a word with God. In my tiny mind, the two were linked: if not brothers, then I felt sure they at least worked for the same company. Yes, Santa and God would get together with Jesus and Mary, and that posh, bossy lady called Thatcher who made my parents say rude words, and they’d find a way to save the little tanned children with pokey-out tummies who lived in my telly.

Yes, when it comes to this song, my heart is a traitor to the truth. I know that it’s as much use as a makeup-less selfie is to Cancer, or as chucking a bucket of water is to curing ALS, but my forever-four-year-old heart really wants to believe that playing ‘Whose singing now?’ can, in fact, feed the world.

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Letter to my 15 Year Old Self

Dear Little Me,

1) Enjoy looking at the balance of your Halifax Savings Account. The ‘pocket money ‘ you have in there is the highest amount of disposable income you’re ever going to have. Sad but true.

2) Stop making notes from ‘Just Seventeen’ magazine on how to make boys fancy you. Some will. Some won’t. It’s a chemical thing. You have no control over that.

3) You are not fat. Ok, so you’re curvy with a round face and you don’t have that elfin, androgynous figure that boys your age like. But those ‘hideous’ bits that you cry over right now, will be the very things that men like about you in a few years time. So go on, have that extra donut.

4) On the subject of donuts, when Dado brings a plethora of pasties and cakes on Wednesday and Friday nights, don’t worry about how much you’ve eaten. Enjoy every morsel, lick every crumb, because in a few years time you’ll be told you have an allergy to wheat and you’ll be subjected to a lifetime of gluten free bread. And gluten free bread is the saddest thing to happen inside anyone’s mouth. Ever.

5) And whilst we’re on the subject of mouths, stop thinking you’re a freak for not having had your first kiss yet. Spoiler alert: you’ll actually have your first kiss in a week’s time in the dark recesses of the Arch nightclub in Neath whilst off your face on your first can of Hooch.

6) For the love of Christ, take those rocks off your bedroom shelf! Ok, you’ve got a mad crush on the boy that sneaked them into your school bag and you want to keep them as a memento. But he didn’t put them in there because he fancied you. He wanted your bag to be too heavy to carry all the way home. Us grownups frequently refer to that kind of behaviour as bullying.

7) Please stop playing Celine Dion’s ‘Think Twice’ over and over again. It’s not good for your psyche. Believe it or not, you’re going to tire of her voice in about 2 years’ time. You will, however, never tire of Tracy Chapman or Dusty Springfield. The love that you have for both ladies shall be life-long.

8) Put your homework down and go outside. There is a whole world waiting for you and it won’t cave in if you bring home less than an A just this once. I understand what you’re doing, but no one ever saved their family from the dark times by learning facts about Nazi Germany and reciting them parrot fashion in an exam.

9) You will go to drama school in a few years time. The teachers will encourage you to say vowels over and over again, until all trace of your Welsh accent is smothered by Estuary English. But as soon as you graduate, 99 per cent of the acting jobs you get will call for you to use your Welsh accent. For the rest of your natural life, every time you meet someone new, they’ll say this: ‘ARE you Welsh? It’s just your accent is a bit muddled.’

10) At the same drama school, the singing teachers will attempt to completely change your voice because it’s ‘phenomenal but f**ked-up’ (these are the actually words your singing teacher, Jack, will use). You will spend literally YEARS trying to contort your voice into weird shapes and sounds to fake that all-coveted ‘legitimate’ musical theatre sound. After almost a decade of rejection you will wise up and go back to using the very voice you already have now, as a 15 year old. And it will be this voice, your authentic voice, that’ll get you paid gigs.

11) You’re about to embark on years of relationships dominated my friendship because you think it brings stability and some kind of intellectual justification. F**k friendship. You’ve got friends for that. Save yourself for someone who makes you light up like a human glowstick.

12) You know that absolute chemical certainty you have, that deep-down-in-your-DNA-knowing, that you’ll be a mother some day? Well enjoy it, relish it, savour it: every self-assured day-dream about what your babies will look like, how many there will be, the people they’ll grow into. Because there will come a day when you’ll lose all faith that you’ll ever be someone’s Mammy.

13) So you’re still burning with shame from last week – when you walked all the way home from school with your skirt unknowingly tucked up in your bag. I’m sorry to tell you that you need to get used to this feeling. Because it’s going to be an intrinsic part of you. You have something innate in you that draws embarrassing situations like moths to a flame. Just try and style it out as best you can.

14) You’re going to spend a disproportionate amount of time singing with Elvis impersonators. Don’t question it. Go with it. Good things are going to come from it.

15) Sometimes you find the noise in the house overwhelming. But get out of your bedroom and go downstairs. Because a series of decisions you make in your 20s will lead you away from your amazing family. And their absence will put a dent in your heart that nothing else will ever fill.

Copyright Kelly Rickard 11.08.14

Please like me!

Oh God. It’s exhausting, it really is: being one of life’s people-pleasers.

Only this morning, I was walking our dog, Otis, when he was attacked by another dog. And while my little treasure was being mauled, I spent the whole time apologizing to the other owner profusely. Worse than that, Otis has picked up my terrible penchant for pleasing others: as the other dog was tearing into him, Otis merely cowered and wagged his tail frantically, like a white (black in his case) flag of surrender.

I know what you’re thinking, I’ve written a thinly veiled account on ‘look how nice I am’, but no, I promise you, it’s not nice. I suppose it’s quite arrogant, really, to think you can keep the whole world happy.

No, it’s not nice. It’s an affliction. And it affects every area of my life.

Lets take…meal times. Just last week I selected a Mexican street food van in London for lunch for my family. When, unsurprisingly, there was nothing there for my ten year old niece to eat (what ten year old wants Mexican street food?), I was so worried that I’d ruined everyone’s lunch, that I burst into tears and…ruined everyone’s lunch: an alarmingly frequent self-fulfilling prophecy of mine.

Dinner parties at other people’s homes can also be particularly treacherous territory for me. I’m Coeliac (allergic to wheat and gluten), and most people just can’t seem to get their head around it (‘You can eat bread, right?’). But if the food has been cooked and put in front of me, I just can’t bring myself to say ‘no’ (it’s just too rude!) And even when forced to be honest by my husband, I find myself playing it down so they won’t think I’m a drama queen, ‘oh no, no, the allergy isn’t serious. What’s a bit of infertility and bowel cancer between friends? Pass me the breaded mushrooms.’

Oh and the trauma, the absolutely devastating trauma, when I find that someone doesn’t like me (a shiver runs through me as I type the very words). My poor, pathetic heart just can’t seem to cope with that simple fact of life: not everyone will like you. I was working on one show where the other singer just…well, she hated me, for want of a prettier, more euphemistic phrase. She told me I should buy ‘Singing for Dummies,’ and she spread a rumour that I’d had a threesome with two of my cast members (Ha! A people-pleaser in a threesome: can you imagine? No established etiquette, all those parts to keep happy, the balls to juggle, the ‘No, you first,’ ‘No, you go first,’ ‘No, really, I don’t mind…’ It would be disastrous.) Of course, with hindsight, I should have confronted her. Instead I lay awake at night trying to think of ways to change her opinion of me.

Work is particularly tricky: my people-pleasing won’t allow me to sell myself (no one likes a big head, right?), so I stay quiet about any qualifications or experience I’ve got, and nod my head and smile at the the ten-year-old-with-one-good-spelling-test-behind-him who just got promoted above me. I’m so bad at selling myself that at my own wedding, when my lovely, proud dad started boasting about my A/level and degree results during his speech, everyone burst out laughing – they assumed he was joking.

Teaching, as a people-pleaser, is particularly tricky. I live in constant fear that I’ll turn X Factor on, and one of my ex-students will be up there humiliating themselves, and it’ll be my fault, because I wasn’t brave enough to tell them they’re an absolutely shocking singer.

And it’s even worse with young children. Once, I’d been leading a workshop for 8 year olds (for a full 90 minutes) before a little boy said, ‘Howay, man, are you the teacher, like? Whey, I never! I thought you were just playing, like the rest of us…’

Oh and the subtext! I read subtext into everything. Someone could text me a completely innocuous ‘How are you?’ with a harmless smiley face at the end, but for me that opens a whole can of worms: Why would they think I’m not ok? Have I said something that worried them? Do they want me to ask them back because there’s something wrong with them and they need to talk? And why the smiley face, and not a kiss? Have I upset them?

See, exhausting!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this.

No, I mean it, I really hope you did.

You did, didn’t you?

Oh God, why aren’t you saying thing? I haven’t offended you, have I?!

Copyright Kelly People-Pleasing Rickard May 2014

Why Why Bad Boys Bore the Bejesus Out of Me

We’ve all seen it – the anxious-looking nail-biter flicking her eyes across to the iPhone so often she looks like she has a tic, gripping the sides of it, like a cancer patient with a morphine drip: willing it to ease her pain. Will he text? Is he going to call? Where IS he?

Yep, women love a bad boy, or so I’ve heard. Ooh he’s exciting, a real wild card, isn’t he? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!??? The Bad Boy is the most boring human to walk the planet. God, the sheer PREDICTABILITY of him.

You’ll know him instantly because while he’ll have one hand on your bum, he’ll also have one eye looking over your shoulder for a better option. And your self esteem will be so starved as a result that every time he DOES grace you with some eye contact, you’ll be like a dying flower, given a solitary drop of water. You’ll practically feel the ribbons on your knickers come loose.

He will promise you the world on a stick until you give in and sleep with him, and then you can bet your boobies that you won’t hear from him again.

‘But it isn’t his fault’, I hear you collectively sigh. ‘He’s a commitment phobe: his parents split up, his dad was distant, he went to a strict boarding school, his first girlfriend broke his heart…when he was 5…’

Sorry, I dropped off for a moment there. I’ve said it before, it’s 2014, if you didn’t have SOMETHING screwy happen in your formative years go sit with someone else, cos we can’t be friends.

The problem is you THINK you’re in love. But I promise it’s just your brain messing with you. The little compartment that deals with love is RIGHT next to the little bit that recognizes anxiety, so it’s just a trick of the mind.

No, the bad boy isn’t for me.

I like a bit of stamina, a bit of staying power. A man confident and classy enough to rise above the games and ring you when he says he will.

You do not need that boring little boy whose running scared from one bed to the next. Oh he loves you, he does, when you’re done up like a doll and you’re laughing like a hyena at every stolen joke he tells.

But there could come a time when Fate knocks you sideways, and when that happens, you’re going to need a man – a REAL man – a man who will love you just as much when you’re crying on the floor as he does when you’re shining up on a pedestal. A man, who may have had a childhood sadder than Oliver Twist’s, but who would NEVER use it as an excuse to hurt you. Because he loves you.

And there ain’t nothing boring about that.

So say B’bye to that Bad Boy that’s bugging you. He’s had his day in the sun, and in your bed. Wait for something better. Because he IS on his way. He’s just taking a while because he’s saving a kitten from a burning building (with his top off, obviously…).

Kelly xxx

The Facebook Prism Effect

The Facebook Prism Effect

Remember at school, they’d give you a colorless glass triangular thing and tell you to turn it this way and that, eh voila, a rainbow? Well, think of Facebook as being like that prism. Put an ordinary life in, give it a bit of a spin, and out it comes all multi-coloured and…facebooky. Here are my favourite Facebook lies.

Facebook Trick of the Light: I am happy ALL the time.
Actual Truth: Happiness is a wondrous emotion, but it can be a slippery little fecker to keep hold of. Like a sunny day in Newcastle, or a rugby win for Wales, it is beautiful but rare, and everyone remembers where they were when it happened.

Facebook Trick of the Light: The ‘I’m not Gay’ Selifie.
The V in your top plunges deeper than the ocean, your moobs are hard as marble and smooth as a baby’s bum. You’re tanned from ear to ear and year to year. And there is a (different) confused and lonely-looking girl pushed slightly off centre in every shot.
Actual Truth: You, my lovely, are gay. You are gayer than the gayest one in the Village People. You have the gayness quota of all the Village People COMBINED. So drop your guard, stop the pretense, put on your pink t-shirt and come play with me and all my gay friends!

Facebook Trick of the Light: Look how thin/tanned/pretty I am.
Actual Truth: Instagram.

Facebook Trick of the Light: What a wild night we had! See all my photos?
Actual truth: No one ever, in the middle of experiencing a truly wild night, remembered to get their camera out. And if some photos did actually surface they would not be uploaded to Facebook for fear of losing your relationship/your job/your freedom (jail sentence, anyone?)

Facebook Trick of the Light: Any status that begins with ‘Some people…’ and ends with ‘#just saying.’
Truth: You aren’t just saying. You’re using the power of passive aggression to have a go at someone you’d never confront in your real life. I should know. I’m doing it right now.

Facebook Trick of the Light: Look! I’m in a band!
Actual Truth: No. You’re in a photo shoot. One involves cameras. The other involves instruments. And an audience. And getting paid.

Facebook Trick of the Light: Got something really exciting to announce later!
Actual truth: Nothing really exciting has happened to you for a very long time but your ex just tweeted that he’s off on tour so you had to say something.

Facebook Trick of the Light: I’m rich! Look at my new car/new boobs/new holiday villa.
Actual truth: When you look in the mirror you can actually see the whites of your eyes all the way round, you’re THAT frightened about making the mortgage this month.

Facebook Trick of the Light: Best holiday EVER!
Actual Truth: Oh go on, tell us the truth, it’s funnier. Like when you accidentally covered your crotch with anti-insect spray and it burned so bad you couldn’t go in the salty sea for the rest of the holiday – for fear the little man would drop off. No? That wasn’t you?

To conclude, I’m absolutely in favour of people spreading joy and cheer and good news. But I also think you should tell the little spin-doctor in your laptop to do one. We need to take the pressure off ourselves, have a laugh, be a bit self-deprecating. Because life is actually really quite funny. And sometimes the truth is even better than the spin you’re putting on it.

Kelly Rickard

How and When to Eat a Banana: a Love Letter to Young, Female Singers

A Note to all my Daughters

It’s nothing new for women to use sex to get along in the entertainment industry. Two words. One ginormous pair of breasts. Dolly Parton, anyone? A white skirt and a handy draught from the sewage pipes – eh viola, Marilyn Monroe was immortalized. Gold hot pants and a bum that’s as hard and shiny as two Brazil nuts – and Kylie was back from the musical dead.

But whenever I go on the net and see another young girl looking slack-jawed and dead-eyed at the camera in her latest photo shoot, a little piece of me dies. It seems hardly a day goes by without one young female singer fellating her microphone for the camera.

I think it’s the mother in me. I don’t have a baby yet so until then every student of mine, every young girl I teach, every wannabe singer I know is my daughter. And I just can’t bare to see her sucking on her finger that way, in the hope that it will secure her a record deal.

So take it from me, my lovely young things. There is a time and a place for eating a banana like that*. And it isn’t for a free photo shoot. In the back of the local pub. With that dude in the inch-thick glasses.

Let a beautiful voice and a bucketful of charm speak for you. And until then, save it.

Save it for when you’re headlining Glastonbury, or selling out the O2. Save it for when you’re top of your game, and you’re an expert at playing it. Save it for when you know what irony is and you’re surrounded by powerful people who will protect you from those that don’t.

Save it. So that instead of looking dead behind the eyes, you’ll have a knowing twinkle and a dollar sign in them. Save it for when you’re bringing other people to their knees. And not crawling around on all fours yourself.

Because if you’re good enough, that time will come.

Written with love,

Kelly Rickard

*Try slicing your banana up and having it on toast with Nutella? It’s much nicer 😘

We Love Men

Today’s blog is about loving men 💏

Ok, if one more person tells me that being a feminist has anything to do with hating men, I am going to scream. Loudly. In their face.

Feminism has nothing to do with hating men. There ARE feminists that hate men, and that is a shame as they do the rest of us a massive disservice, but hating men is not what feminism is.

We LOVE men! So much so that we want them to have happy, intelligent, respected and respectable, educated, wealthy, EQUAL female life-partners.

Feminism is simply about wanting men and women to be treated equally. Not the same. We know we’re different. But equally. And that can only be a good thing for men. Who wants to spend their time with somebody who is LESS than them? You have more respect for yourselves than that, don’t you, boys?

It is not about getting angry if a man opens a door for us. I am more than happy to have a door held open for me. Just as I am happy to hold a door open for a man. Why wouldn’t I be? My arms work just fine. Why wouldn’t I use them?

It is not about being annoyed if a man foots the bill. That can be lovely sometimes. But it is about being able to proudly declare, ‘actually I’ll get this.’ Because I am a self-respecting woman with a job and a wage that I’m proud of. Why shouldn’t men be treated sometimes? (See, us feminists are thinking of you too)

It is not about burning our bras. We love those little ergonomic wonders of metal and lace that help us defy gravity on a daily basis (although taking them off at the end of the day is pretty luscious too…)

It is not about being a lesbian. Although some feminists are.

It is not about being a ‘ladette,’ that early 90s breed, that saw women emulating ‘lads’ by drinking beer and burping and pretending to like football in an attempt to gain respect.

It is not about being Margaret Thatcher, who had voice lessons so that she could lower her larynx to sound like a man.

On the flipside, neither is it about being a caricature of female sexuality. It is not getting naked in a music video and simulating sex and saying, ‘hey, it’s ok cos I CHOSE to do this.’ (Trust me, girl, you didn’t. You just think you did. But that’s a whole other blog.)

It is not about being offended if you compliment us on how we look. Of course you’re going to like the way we look. Our bodies are bloody amazing! With all of their undulations and twiddly bits and fleshy corners. I mean, babies come out of us. Of course you’re going to be impressed with a machine like that!

We love that when girls’ magazines were showing photos of Kelly Brook and calling her ‘fat’, your lads’ mags were showing the same photos with the word ‘sensational’ emblazoned across her.

So go ahead, take a long hard look. Just so long as you can hear what we’re saying to you at the same time…

What it is about is this. It is about wanting the same pay for the same job, the same rights to education and independence. The ability to go to all the places that men may go, to wear what we want, say what we want, drive, drink, have sex, do all the things that men can do without being punished or judged.

We want to be your friend. To talk to you on a level and share our ideas with you and impress you and tell you our (actually really flipping funny) jokes and have you laugh your head off like you would if we were male.

Men, you cannot have a mother, a sister, a daughter, a niece and love them properly and NOT be a feminist.

So I will forever champion women. And what it is to be a woman. And at the very heart of being a woman is loving a man.

So, do you get it now? Feminists don’t hate men. We love them.

(And if you’re a woman reading this who isn’t a feminist: shame on you, you poor, ignorant soul. Go have a long, serious talk with yourself in the mirror)

For to declare yourself anti-feminist, is to declare yourself anti-human.

Copyright Kelly Rickard Dec 20th 2013

Live Witness Review

Live Witness, Live Theatre. Tuesday 14th to Saturday 25th May.

Theatre intimidates ‘ordinary’ people.
It does, you know. It scares them.
It makes them feel that they must wear their Sunday best, fork out (terrible pun) for a posh meal, sit up straight without fidgeting, and not chew their sweets too loudly during the performance.

Theatre is artistic, abstract, high-brow culture, isn’t it? It isn’t commonly thought of as the domain of the working-class.

I don’t have the brain power for high-brow tonight. Especially not after rushing home from work and discovering that Otis the puppy has peed all over the new ottoman. And I certainly don’t have the energy for a promenade performance. I’m feeling vulnerable (largely due to the Otis and the Ottoman Incident).

I’m not ready for the actors to acknowledge my presence, to – gulp! – make eye contact with me, and – heaven forbid – invite me to participate.
I want to sit in the darkness, unacknowledged, with my bag of raspberry ruffles.

Of course I soon change my mind (as I am wont to do whenever there’s a Geordie involved).

Live Witness does what Newcastle Folk do best. It drags you in with an honest story and a self-deprecating twinkle in the eye. From the earnest energy of the Mischief Makers in the bar, to the charming humility of Jane Holman’s stories in her dressing room, I am fully won over by the entire cast.

The theatre’s 40th Birthday show aims not to alienate, but to invite in, not to show off, but simply to story-tell. The style of the piece epitomises the very essence of Newcastle’s Live Theatre: it is theatre by ‘ordinary’ people, for ‘ordinary’ people. ‘This is your home,’ Jane says during one of her stove-side tales. ‘This is your home.’

And the piece reinforces that ethos right the way through. The chosen party food would not be out of place in a working-man’s club: pasties and cheese-on-sticks. Similarly, the decorations are disarmingly simple and charmingly retro: balloons and bunting. From the get go, Live Witness wants you to know that you – yes, you, the one whose granddad was a miner – are welcome here.

The warm hospitality continues. We’re invited to sit on 40 different seats from 40 different shows. The stage itself is unusually shaped, and, perhaps to remain in keeping with the political standpoint of the theatre, is offset a little to the left…

Only a Geordie theatre company would have the bare-faced cheek and the sheer faith in the human spirit to ask its audience to step outside in the wind and the rain and sing with them. But of course because the company has that distinctly Geordie charm, we do.
Out in the fairy-lit courtyard with the Tyne behind and a sea of balloons in front, Jane strums her guitar and sturdy harmonies echo around the period flagstones. I forget all about the pee stain that awaits me at home and enjoy a rare, goosepimply, hair-standing-on-end moment.

Like a ukulele night at the Cumberland Arms, or a rockabilly gig at the Cluny, like hearing Lindisfarne lead an audience of hundreds in ‘Run for Home’ at the City Hall to commemorate Sammy Johnson, Live Witness will make you proud to be a Geordie. Or make you want to marry one if you’re not.

You have until Saturday 25th May to go and see this lovely, warm, humble, honest piece of story-telling: as comforting and satisfying as a ham and pease-pudding stottie from Grainger Market.

(Oh, and if you still aren’t sold, the lovely, cheeky Gary Kitching is in it too. I mean, what would happen if he wasn’t in it? Leaving Gary out of the line-up of a North-East cast is like mentioning the Scottish Play by its proper name: it just isn’t done.)
Go see and enjoy! Kelly xx

Why I’ll Never Be A Chick Lit Heroine

Why I’ll Never Be a Chick Lit Heroine

There are some fantastic female writers out there, @lisajewelluk and @MarianKeyes being two of my favourites. But there are also some not so fantastic female writers out there, (possibly unwittingly) lying to themselves and us, their female market, about what to expect out of life. Here’s why I would never be cast as a character in one of their novels.

Chick Lit Lie: The main woman always puts on a slick of lip gloss and some mascara and she’s good to go.
Kelly Truth: If I go out with just mascara and a slick of lipgloss on, I spend the entire day being asked if I have the flu.

Chick Lit Lie: She has no idea that she’s beautiful but at least two men fancy her.
Kelly Truth: I could count on one hand the amount of men that have really, truly fancied me (as opposed to the ‘I might, if she begged’ fancying kind). And they never come along in twos.

Chick Lit Lie: She’s hardly ever in work but somehow manages to afford a Burberry bag, Manolo Blahnik heels and a cashmere jumper.
Kelly Truth: I spend my life in work and I couldn’t tell you the last time I bought something that was over £10.

Chick Lit Lie: When she is in work she spends the entire time flirting with her sexy, stubbly male boss or exchanging hilarious emails with her best friend.
Kelly Truth: All of my bosses are female (hooray!). And there ain’t no time for emailing when you’ve got 28 teenagers waiting for you to teach them, or a 150 drunk wedding guests waiting to be entertained…

Chick Lit Lie: She gets depressed for a chapter and loses weight WITHOUT NOTICING (no actual human woman ever loses weight without noticing). And it’s always just in time for the conference/ball/wedding/ bumping into her ex moment.
Kelly Truth: Last time I had a Bumping Into an Ex Moment – I was hungover, wearing no make up, had leaked a bottle of water all over my crotch, had a spot that had just pussed all over my chin, and was crying after an argument with a friend. Bet he was dying to ask me back though…

Chick Lit Lie: She has an amazing best friend who is funny, quirky, supportive and available 24 hours a day.
Kelly Truth: Actually I do have some pretty amazing friends but I’m lucky if I get to spend 24 hours a YEAR with them.

Chick Lit Lie: She also has an amazing gay best friend who is funny, quirky, good with make up and available 24 hours a day.
Kelly Truth: Actually this is the one point on which I beat Protagonist girl. I am an actor so I have LOADS of gay friends. Both in and out of the closet. So there.

Chick Lit Lie: The sheer amount of TIME she has. Always meeting friends for coffees, having hours of sex with handsome strangers, having long, languid morning afters with handsome strangers, visiting department stores, going to gigs and after-show parties, beauty salons and cocktail bars, writing articles and taking mini breaks in Paris.
Kelly Truth: I have 3 jobs and a band. I’m lucky if I manage to fit sleep in, let alone anything else.

Chick Lit Lie: The leading man is always a foot taller than her and she loves it.
Kelly Truth: As someone whose 5ft 2 I’ve been out with plenty of men who are a foot taller than me. It’s fine – as long as you’re content with a permanent crick in your neck.

Chick Lit Lie: The leading man always has a perfectly toned body but never goes to the gym.
Kelly Truth: If you actually want a man with a perfectly muscly, inverted triangle of a torso, be prepared to spend LOTS of time on your own whilst he’s at the gym, and the rest of the time being bored out of your brain while he talks about the gym.

Chick Lit Lie: The leading man is invariably the Head of the Corporation in the city of London, but still has his regional accent.
Kelly Truth: There has NEVER been a successful Head of a Corporation in London who still has an Irish/Northern/Welsh accent. They’ve all had it battered out of them by the Old Boy’s Network (I could have said something a lot worse here…) .

Chick Lit Lie: Even though he’s a millionaire Head of Corporation type, he always has time for the girl: meeting her for lunch, whisking her away on mini breaks. To Paris.
Kelly Truth: Hugely successful men have reached such a status by making work their priority. You will never be top of this man’s list. Besides, his commute alone takes him two hours-the poor little soul will be sleeping in your lap before you’ve even had a chance to get the Paris brochure out.

Chick Lit Lie: He’s amazing at ‘dirty talk.’
Kelly Truth: It is impossible for a man to be good at talking dirty, until we re-write the names for female body parts. Boobs: Too Page 3. Breasts: something that lies frozen and dismembered at the bottom of your freezer. T/ts: Too full of consonants and sweary. And don’t get me started on the plethora of names for the other bit.

Chick Lit Lie: And as for the sex, well… The man never wears a condom but she remains totally STD-free and never falls pregnant. There’s no mention of how she takes care of her lady garden but its always, miraculously, a perfect landing strip (even though the sex was completely unexpected). He’s a Derren Brown in the bedroom, hypnotising her with his hips, making her come and go like the ebbing and flowing of the sea: he’s a veritable sex magician. And the acrobatic prowess she and he display together! He can lift her up against a wall whilst also managing to have both hands in her hair.
Kelly Truth: if a man managed to hold me up against a wall with just his hips, I’d ruin the moment by slipping down the wall in shock and telling him he should go on Britain’s Got Talent.

And that is why I shall never be a chick lit heroine. Sigh.

(As always, don’t take anything I say too seriously. I never do.)

Kelly Rickard xxx
Copyright April 2013.