Prepping the show - Costuming & Props

So, as you’ll have read last week, I’m right in the middle of planning my dinner show and I’m super excited about it but also super nervous and super busy. I’m trying to make this one the best show I’ve ever done and last week I talked about the setlist and deciding what’s going in the show and how I need some of my standard songs as well as some new stuff, but this week, I’m dealing with costuming and the first time I’ve really been dealing with props, which you don’t often get from a singer.


So, some of these props arrived this week, just in time for rehearsal. They’re sort of half prop, half costume piece in that they’re these beautiful sets of Isis wings (named for the goddess, not the naughty organisation). So, there’s three sets of them – a metallic turquoise set, a metallic pink set and mine, which are a stunning iridescent white with rainbow lights woven into them. They’re for a section in the first half where the girls are going to do a beautiful dance piece while I do a quick change before coming of with my wings, spreading them out, turning on the rainbow lights and hopefully wowing the crowd. They’re a floaty, silky fabric and there’s poles in them so they can be wafted about and create a really stunning effect with the choreography we’ve done. I’m so excited about this part of the show and I wanted a lot of colour here.

So, what I decided on was instead of having two matching sets of wings, I’d have them in different colours, but to tie the outfits together, once of my girls is going to have the pink wings with a turquoise outfit and the other will have the turquoise wings with a pink outfit, tying them together but stil having a massive splash of colour. I’m opting for purple for my outfit, as that’ll complement the pink and turquoise and all three outfits will have some shiny dangly gold bits on them to add movement and some extra colour and sparkle, so it’ll be a riot of colour, which is exactly what I want from that part. We’ll be bringing the rainbow to life and it’s going to be thoroughly dazzling.

As I can’t get to the place in the UK that does many of my costumes, We’ll be using a combination of what we have, what we can order and what we can make fresh for the show. I’m looking at adapting some existing outfits and customising them to reinvent some of my favourite looks for then show.

There’s an incredible number of changes in the show, so the setlist had to be carefully constructed to cover the changes. There are various dance solos and duos to cover my changes and the dancer’s changed are covered by some numbers where I sing alone on stage, so these all had to go into the right places for everything to happen while still making sure each song and section of the show flows nicely from one song to the next, thematically, musically and visually. It was fun to do, but a hell of a challenge!

The opening number clearly has to be impactful and I often like to do a reveal as part of the opening number, so I’ll often go for a big coat or something that can be thrown off to reveal another spectacular outfit underneath. It’s a bit of a trademark – for me and for Cher. There’s a reason for this. It just works. So, I had to think what that was going to be, so I’ve got a fabulous nude illusion beaded outfit and some massive hair with a sparkly tear away coat. If we can pull off this reveal as well as me managing to not drop the mic and get it back into position at the right moment, then it’s going to be fantastic!

Throughout the rest of the show, there’s feathers, sequins, beads, sparkles and all sorts of fabulousness. Some are outfits I’ve worn before and beads, gems and sequins have a habit of going walkabout, so over the next week or so, I’ll be prepping each outfit, cleaning and checking it over for damage or missing gems, sequins, feathers and beads. When you step out, the outfits have to be perfect, so I prefer to regularly check everything in advance. I’m a dreadful perfectionist, so I don’t want to find out on show night that something’s not perfect, it’ll be too late to sort it out and I’ll probably get upset, so if I can avoid that, then I’m going to. A show is made by everyone on stage having a good time. That’s how you make the audience enjoy it – you have to enjoy it for that to happen. The main part is that we have a fabulous team and everyone lifts each other up and makes it work. There’s so much joy and love behind the scenes, I think that really comes through in the shows we do.

So, there’s my week – Costume concept sketches, prop rehearsals, fabric buying and bead checking. My glue gun’s going to get plenty of exercise this week! There’s a lot that goes into putting a fabulous show together, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

I can’t wait to be able to share some of the pictures with you when we get to do the show! With that, I’m, off to fluff up some feathers! Until next time, stay safe, stay sane and stay…. Vidalicious!

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