New Cabaret Night Kicks Off at The Undercroft

You may have heard of some whispers of a new night over at our pop-up theatre in Peterborough, that is a little unusual to say the least. Here is a blog from its creator Keely Mills, not only an avid lover of variety but also our project manager for Eastern Angles in Peterborough...

‘When Ivan asked me to produce a regular night at the Undercroft, I was really honoured, as he not only wanted me to create a platform for more diverse work but he wanted to give me an opportunity to flex my producing skills and primarily to have fun.  That was all I needed! and then The Paradise Trolley Club was born.  Ivan knew that I had dabbled in cabaret before but that this type of night was something missing from Peterborough’s cultural scene.  So where to begin… I needed a name for the night. I asked friends on Facebook to help me with this and their varied and huge amount of ideas helped a lot (Thanks Facebook) also adding a heavy amount of tongue and cheek and the fact that it takes place in a venue within a pretty big shopping centre. Paradise Trolley Club was born. The tag line for the night came to me easily as well.  It’s a cabaret night for those who love a bargain, a laughter rummage and a stacking of their top shelf. So, it's at a fair price, there are unexpected acts and I want the night to leave the audience feeling good.

We had a our first Paradise Trolley Club last Friday, the 22nd of June and we had all those things and more. Our acts included an all female spoken word and music duo, called Gin & Yonic, a mind reader/magician, Dean Odell and also The Nightbus who is a British Muslim drag act. I don’t think I could have got more different acts in the same night and they really did excel and I was also very pleased at how much the acts supported each other.

We also had an unexpected item in the bagging area act, which is either an act who has a party trick to share, or someone who people in Peterborough might know well but not necessarily for the talent they choose to show on the night. Our first unexpected item was Tom Fox who some of you may know from directing theatre with Lamphouse or indeed with Eastern Angles and as he blew the audience away with his beautiful love songs and seeing Tom have a lot of fun, I knew that this type of act was a winner.

I also created our own Trolley clubcard with extra benefits, programmed trolley hosts to help the audience enjoy the night and led a party game. I also commissioned an artist to design a one of a kind of cocktail especially for the night. For our first event, we had Katy Hawkins invent, ‘The Tricolour’ which Katy wanted to pay homage to TESCO, the almighty that sits above, this cocktail contained a concoction of drinks -  referencing each element of the Tesco Tricolour palette and also the drinker could garnish the drink with cherries, blueberries or white chocolate drops. It went down very well and people really enjoyed the idea of an artist designing the drink and if you want the recipe then please message Eastern Angles.

There is a Paradise Trolley Club coming up in October and it will have all the elements that made up the first night but maybe with a very spooky theme and edge to it. I am hoping to have ghoulish storytelling with some immersive aspects to it, a cocktail created by the designer of our Polstead leaflet and also a pretty big unexpected item in bagging area too. That date is the 18th of October and please keep an eye on our website for more info or our Facebook page for The Undercroft'