At the weekend I saw a wonderful Circus show at the Belfast Community Circus School (shameless plug: check it out at www.belfastcircus.org) in which many of my good friends performed. There were strong men and women standing on eachother's heads, hammers being juggled, hats being flipped, pretty women spinning about on trapezes, hoops being spun, ropes being climbed, and even the most adorable little chicken learning to fly on a silk. All performed with confidence, grace and style.
I was reminded of my own performance days, which pretty much started at the age of five or six at Primary School.
A teacher decided that we would all be involved in a show, to be performed in front of the school, parents and family members. My memory of the actual details of the show are pretty vague, I’m guessing that some kids had lines to act out, or a song to sing, but the only thing the less talented of us had to do was, at the end, stand in a line, in costume, sing a song together and then promptly leave the stage.
Best of all, I was to dress up as Tinker Bell! Tinker Bell! I was going to be Tinker Bell! This was a dream. My life’s ambition at that time was to be a fairy so I was super excited that my dreams were soon to be realised. I was thrilled.
Weeks passed as the teacher worked hard sorting out everyone’s costumes…everyone’s but mine.
The day before the show my costume issues still had not been resolved and teacher was stressed.
“Miss, Miss, I need wings”
“Eh, we’ll sort something out”
“Will I make some at home? A fairy has to have wings”
“No, don’t worry, it’ll be fine”
The show. Our time came. We filed out onto the stage, everyone looked fabulous in their costumes. I was in the front row, due to my height, in my costume. My costume consisted of…a leotard. Just a leotard. That was it, no wings, nothing. I don’t even think it was Tinker Bell’s colour.
Now as if it wasn’t scarring enough to place a self conscious child on a stage in just a leotard in front of a bunch of bewildered parents, there was another problem. And that problem was flatulence.
About a week before the show as I was sitting in class, an enormous quantity of gas was brewing and bubbling its way through my large intestine. The pressure grew and grew until there was nowhere else for it to go…It EXPLODED ITS WAY OUT OF MY POSTERIOR, THE WALLS SHOOK, PICTURES FELL, PUPILS DIVED FOR COVER! The teacher spun round, eyes ablaze, and glared at the boy next to me “THAT IS DEEEEESGUSTING!”, at which point he immediately dobbed me in.
Both teacher and pupils then fell about laughing. Back then I was a quiet, innocent looking blonde haired blue eyed little girl, and I suppose it was a little unexpected. But to be honest, I was quite innocent, I didn’t realise that this was a social faux pas. At home, with my brothers, it seemed to be the done thing, in fact, the louder the better. I had never held such a thing in.
And so “Tinker Bell” naturally enough evolved into “Stinker Bell” – I have to give personal thanks to Richard Barr for that one.
So here starteth and endeth my stage career and to this day I have never shaken the memory of Stinker Bell.