Armchair Historians

Episode 21: Paulus The Cabaret Geek, Part 1

October 06, 2020 Paulus
Armchair Historians
Episode 21: Paulus The Cabaret Geek, Part 1
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Show Notes Transcript

My guest today is Paulus The Cabaret Geek. Known for his 2018 and 2019 appearances as one of the judges on the BBC talent show "All Together Now," Paulus is (at his core) a cabaret performer, working in the world of variety entertainment for 30 years. He has performed in musicals, plays and on television, but his passion for cabaret, vaudeville, review and music hall has dominated his career, whether it be as a performer, promoter, agent or producer.

Drag has been a recurring theme in Paulus's workmen's cutting his teeth at the world famous Madam Jojo's in 1999 as Trinity Million. He made his New York debut in 2005 at both Don't Tell Mama and Birdland. He has performed at venues throughout the world.

In this episode Paulus talks about his favorite history, Cabaret.

Paulus's Youtube

Paulus website

Up Yer Arts podcast

Paulus on social media:
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter

Resources:
Le Chat Noir
Rudolphe Salis
The Cabaret by Lisa Appignanesi
Cabaret, 1972 film starring Liza Minelli

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Anne Marie Cannon:

Thank you for joining us today for armchair historians. I'm your host, Anne Marie Cannon, armchair historians is a Belgian rabbit production. Stay up to date with us through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Wherever you listen to your podcast that is where you'll find us. You can also find us at armchair historians.com armchair historians as an independent, commercial free podcasts. If you would like to support the show, you can buy us a cup of coffee through cofee or you can become a subscribing member through Patreon You can find links to both in the Episode Notes. My guest today is policy the cabaret geek known for his 2018 and 2019 appearances as a difficult to please judge on BBC Talent Show All together now. policy is at his core, a cabaret performer working in the world of variety entertainment for 30 years, Paulus has performed in musicals, plays and on television, but his passion for cabaret vaudeville, review and musical has dominated his career whether it was as performer promoter, agent or producer. Drag has been a reoccurring theme and policies work, cutting his teeth at the world famous Madame jojos in 1999 is Trinity million. He made his New York debut in 2005. at both don't tell mama and Birdland is performed at venues throughout the world. Oh my goodness, is there anything he hasn't done? pS in honor of palace and his drag roots I dressed for the occasion, mimicking the early 20th century drag King style of Greta Garbo to see pictures of my drag King look, as well as policies Queen of cabaret style. Check out armchair historians Instagram and Facebook accounts. policy, the cabaret geek Welcome and thank you so much for being here today.

Paulus:

It is my pleasure.

Anne Marie Cannon:

You look amazing. Oh, thanks. I do like it,

Paulus:

it's a very good opportunity to keep practicing my makeup skills because I haven't done it for a while.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Well, you look amazing. teal is definitely working the tail I shadow.

Paulus:

I haven't done this for a really long time. And as I'm sure you know, when you have a Patreon account, you have to do a whole bunch of extra stuff as well as the stuff you're doing so whilst trying to do this makeup for the first time in what I think is four months. I'm also I was also recording a behind the scenes and telling people about you and about the story you end up putting on here historians, which is hilarious. And and and talking about the period I've chosen so they'll that will be out and about somewhere with my patrons tonight. And then next week, I'll put it I'll put it on my proper channel so everybody can see it. So everything takes takes longer. That's what I'm trying to say.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Oh, I know I will I decided that since you said you said, quote, I'll have a wash. I had a wash that I was going to get dressed up and I borrowed my best friend's bow tie. And he said if you think he said if you can't do it right? Then just leave it. But I figured it out. He said leave

Paulus:

it like never been able to do that. That's very good.

Anne Marie Cannon:

I get the hat. I just can't wear the hat with the headphones. I thought

Paulus:

you meant you wouldn't be able to concentrate when you said you can't do the interview as well as I find it very hard to concentrate this on and I wear it a lot.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Well, I'm excited. So I feel good about my kind of drag King sort of luck.

Paulus:

Yeah. Barry. I think Tom was talking to you a little bit, wasn't he about Vesta? Tilly, I think she came up in your Yeah, it's very fine detail. Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

I need to do more research. I was looking at that Greta Garbo. And she did the drag King look. And she worked very well. A couple years ago, I had a Halloween party. And I dressed up as Groucho Marx, and you talk a lot about gender fluidity. And so I had that big mustache and I just remember I felt really uncomfortable all night. Because it that part of it wasn't for me, but I love the interplay between, you know, kind of what we classically consider as male and female. Male, and I don't know, I feel like I'm getting more in touch with that. I always loved Annie Hall.

Paulus:

Her law Yeah. They have a very, very sort of little known movie was not movie it's a film. One of I think it was Marlena Dietrich his very first film in fact are certainly one of her first of nearly finished doing my nails then I'll be able to look at you. And it's called the Blue Angel. And many people say that the movie cabaret for the Liza Minnelli movie cabaret is based partly on Marlena Dietrich's movie, The Blue Angels, I've always been very drawn to it. And she is in a sort of drag King outfit. But she doesn't wear trousers. She's got her legs on display, and she's still in heels. So she sort of like bottom part female top was very interesting. She looks awesome in that as well.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So we start out each episode with the question, what is your favorite history that we're going to be talking about today?

Paulus:

You know, this has been quite difficult. I go back into my cabaret books, of which there are not many available. Certainly not in the UK anyway, and I went to my old trusty vert, cabaret by Lisa opinion, AZ and for a long, long time. I am Dennard between the mid 1880s in Paris when Rudolph Salus who set up at lush Anwar moved along with his regular performance. She describes at least her opinion ese as them Don't think of the street with the sets and the costumes and the piano away from the Chateau noir to wards the moment where the second Chat Noir building would be. And I just thought, wouldn't it be amazing to be part of that parade in the dead of night because the original shower was in a very dangerous area and people kept kicking it till Saturday was stabbed in his own cabaret venue. And so I love the idea of moving towards the future, especially right now I like that idea as a particular thing to consider. But as you can tell by my by my outfit and my makeup, I'm very influenced by well by the movie cabaret, which I grew up with. I was born in 1975. And it came out in 1972. So it would be ridiculous of me to not sort of recognize Kander and Ebb analyze Minnelli's and the filmmakers of the movie cabaret has a huge influence. And I think anybody around my age would be lying if they said that that isn't part of what they think of as far as career is concerned. And I think that look, and that aesthetic has more to do with the roaring 20s. And I'm picking Berlin 1922 as my period.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Okay, I love it. I love Yeah.

Paulus:

So by the time you get to Berlin in 1922, it's basically the most exciting, vibrant, fascinating place that in the world for artists, and creativity and and definitely for cabaret. And that's why that's why I've had to go with it. Although I very much love for rezian cabaret love, Alicia Noir, and I've been to the building just last year when I was teaching cabaret to a bunch of part French people part American. I was teaching in Paris and I went on a little pilgrimage to find the building. I love that place. But I've stumped for Berlin the end.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Wow. Well, I You had me at when I was doing my deep, deep dive You had me at Tom Waits, who is a fan of that music. So I'm really excited about this to learn.

Paulus:

Yeah, there's a couple of Tom Waits songs on my YouTube channel at the moment. And I do. I do love Tom Waits. Unfortunately, I have to confess to doing quite a lot of just smoking during lockdown to keep myself sane. So I'm probably gonna sound a lot more than I do on though.

Anne Marie Cannon:

He's worked on apparently worked on that all of his life. He always he's, I've heard a couple interviews where he talks about how he always wanted to be an old man. Like he always liked that aesthetic.

Paulus:

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Is this a wonderful? what's what's the song? It's not one I've covered yet. But there's a song about a phone call. An old man makes a phone call to an old flame. And I think it's just the name of the woman. That is the song and this is a terrible story. Because Yeah, yeah, I love that song. And I only found out about it last year, but that's that's brilliant. So he's definitely Yeah. Been old before his time. Definitely.

Anne Marie Cannon:

We're here to talk about you. We don't need to talk about Tom Waits. I'm working on that interview, but I don't know. Let me

Paulus:

know when you get

Anne Marie Cannon:

by Yeah, so um, Berlin 1922. And that that specific why that year?

Paulus:

Well, there's a venue called live birth, which in spite of its very, very French name was in the heart of Berlin and a by that period in history, the short song, or the protest song has reemerged is that the Johnson and Johnson is songs, entertainers, just but it has basically as possible. That was happening back in the 1880s in Paris Atlas shot while and was very much formulated. Even before that during the cafe concerts that came before cabaret. When you get to Berlin in the 1920s. It's more just a little bit into what is known as the protest song. And the idea of parodying either a song that already exists, or lampooning a politician or a member of the royal family or whatever, through song has really reached its heyday. And I, I guess the reason why I've chosen apart from the aesthetic of the period, this this period is, because that's where I cut my teeth really lead to, you know, taking famous songs, and rewriting the words, in order to say something new about the time I was living in, or what was happening in the news or whatever it might be. And it's very interesting that we're a year and a bit away from the centenary of 1922. And the idea of needing to protest and needing to speak heart. And you're, you're in America, I'm in the UK, and I just saw your and heard your big sigh when they said that they're in life. And I know, there's so many different differences to our experience and to our countries. But we're both feeling real strong. And there's a moment here, I think that's just around the corner that could research cabaret in, in a way that hasn't been seen for almost a century, I would suggest. And that's extremely exciting to me.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Well, that's making lemonade out of lemons.

Paulus:

You know, in the last couple of days in the UK, I mean, I don't know why I'm laughing because I'm so angry, I woke up very, very angry today. Within the last couple of days in the UK, people in the creative arts and in the events industries, have been called low skilled by our own government, and have been told to get better jobs to retrain and get better jobs by members of our empower. I'd like to see them

Anne Marie Cannon:

get up and do what you do.

Paulus:

Well, you know, it's just it's not just performance though. Amery. You know, it's the lighting designers and the lighting technicians and the people that drive the vans and unload the bands and all those lovely men in their in their shorts that are always smiling and always putting up with my filthy, filthy jokes. And there's so much patience. And it's not. I mean, we're the tip of the iceberg. We're just the ones that get a round of applause. There's thousands, millions of others that, you know, the Assistant producer, the producer, the the person that gets the coffee, it's just the idea that we are this is the phrase this week in the news again, from a member it might have even been the Prime Minister, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest not viable. Our careers and our jobs are not viable is what we've been told. And they've been given ample opportunity to retract that statement. They aren't doing so the idea makes me so violently angry, but it's so misguided as well, you know, in 2019, the culture and events and the arts brought in more money to the UK than agriculture. So if we're not viable,

Anne Marie Cannon:

why are you subsidizing farms? And what's the difference between you and them? What's the difference between you and them except for maybe your political leanings? But what they do is basically performing right?

Paulus:

I think there's a huge misunderstanding and it's being you know, that the light is being shown on that really strong right now in this country of what it is to be a freelancer to be self employed. And, you know, just taking myself as an example, as well as being a self employed Freelancer and be creative events industry, I give work to many, many other self employed freelancers, including Tom Carey dining with Caroline's got me sing along and countless other brilliant companies some penis, but also the people that print my flyers, the people that make my backing tracks. And the lady that made that rhinestones on my shoes and stuff and made this hatchback and it's it goes on and on and on. I've given people, a lot of people a lot of work in the last 30 years. And that's what the country is about. That's how we make the world go around. It's so short sighted. So short sighted.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yeah. That is infuriating. It's horrible here to like the things that are going on here. It's just honestly, I can't even the presidential debate was the other night. I can't even watch it. Because it's, it just triggers me so much. And I know that it's going to be a shit show. Excuse My French. And I don't need to know the particulars. So I, I give a lot of credit to my friends that feel that it's their duty to watch the debate, but I just I can't my sanity is skating on the night. Yeah,

Paulus:

I'm completely I'm completely with you. And if that means turning off the radio or changing the channel to one that, you know, has a lot, a lot less news content, then so be it. Because I, I I'm getting Yeah, same, that same issue. I'm getting to the age sanity wise, it's a very, very, I've got on my exercise bike, which is a new thing for me. I don't really exercise, but we bought a while ago, because we're stuck here. You know, my husband and I, and when he's working from home, and I'm barely working until, and I put on so much weight over the summer that we bought an exercise like and when I was on it today. I I don't think I've ever fueled anger into sweat. In the 45 years. I've been on this planet in the way I did today. And for that I must thank all of

Anne Marie Cannon:

you shared you like lemonade, don't you?

Unknown:

Well, that's good. I'm Yeah.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Yes. So let's get back to cabaret. 1922 Yeah, Jeremy. Yeah,

Paulus:

that was much safer place to be.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Little did they know what they had going?

Paulus:

Well, it's an interesting period, isn't it? Because of course, it's between the wars. And I teach cabaret to sometimes to very young people, you know, people who have just left home and left their parents for the first time in a living in a big city for the first time. 1920 years old. And I've been I've been asking them this question for the last couple of years. They're not all from the UK. Often they will be from different parts of Europe, you might sometimes get someone from America as well. And I'd say to them, okay, imagine a scenario that you will wake up tomorrow morning, and you hear on the news or read on Twitter, that your favorite stand up comic has been censored, because he said something against Donald Trump, and has now been banned from television and radio on the internet for the foreseeable future. Would that surprise you? And in a group of between 18 and 30 people, you know, 75% of them, or more will will say no, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. And, and the point of my story is, that's exactly what was happening. In the latter part of this particular era in cabaret, you know, people were disappeared. Hitler was having cabaret performers run to the ground. And if that meant getting them, it meant killing them. Because they were speaking out and speaking out. And he didn't like that. And again, you know, 100 years on how far have we come? Right?

Anne Marie Cannon:

Oh, yeah, I'm sure that Donald Trump would do that every day if he could.

Paulus:

Yeah, I mean, luckily, we have you know, things in place and awesome people are fighting the good fight to prevent that from happening and and even though the 24 hour news cycle and, and all of the social media is such a mind melt, for me, at least we have them now to keep better informed. And for people to be able to have a platform to speak that before. All they had was the cabaret stage with a dirty, dusty corner of a cellar, or a bar or you know, the top floor of a restaurant. And and that's where you got to, you know, like people do every day now on on social media, you've got to say your piece, and say what you think is right or wrong with the world. And that's always been what one of the reasons I've been very attracted to cabaret is is that it's a soap box, I suppose to a certain extent. And that's To give people to give people a chance to have a voice. I was teaching. Just last week, actually, a course called coming together I was, I was very unsure whether it was going to be able to happen because we have a local lockdowns in the UK at the moment. And at any moment, you know, they could tell me that where I live here in London would be locked down again, and I've got shows coming up in this very month cabaret shows, and I had a couple of training courses booked. And normally in space I use, I would be able to work with maybe up to 15 people, and there would be dancing, there would be group singing there would be moving around the room freely there would be do it, play this game, do this exercise with this one person. And then you know, hug them and say goodbye, I love you and then rush off and find your next partner. And and putting together the training course was so difficult because so many things, trying to keep two meters distance between every participant and bearing in mind, the droplets coming from a singer and having three meters from from them. So many things I would normally do on a training course about cabaret or acting through song or just general creativity. And that's what this course was the sort of creative reboot for people that had either lost something from lockdown and Coronavirus, or that thing had been halted. And they wanted to sort of just get back going again. Or they wanted to spend the day finding something new that they could move forward to the future with and I asked people, I gave people two opportunities in day, one of three minutes and one of seven minutes to just take the space bus the rest of us witness. And as you can do, or say or thing, whatever you want, you can stand or sit in silence and just look at us if you want to. Or you can sing a couple of songs. Here's the wonderful Ben is Jordan, actually, Jordan Clark. And the the idea of an opportunity to take the space and to speak, to speak your truth, which is a tremendously, you know, buzz word, buzzy phrase in this country at the moment, especially people in their 20s and 30s. This is my truth. I want to speak my truth. Again. That's tremendously tremendously cabaret, and it's all it's more than 100 years old people getting up and speaking their truth. That's what's always turned me on about to really.

Anne Marie Cannon:

So how, how would you describe cabaret, if somebody asked you what, what is cabaret?

Paulus:

Well, the first thing I do is I go to the dictionary definition. And for a long time, I used to use the Oxford English Dictionary from 1984, because that's the copy I had. And interestingly, it hasn't changed the definition I'm about to give you since 1984. And it may well be older than that. And Wikipedia has taken a very similar stance as far as definition is concerned. And I will be paraphrasing slightly here. But it basically says cabaret is a form of entertainment, experienced whilst sat around tables, often drinking, sometimes eating. And what I find endlessly fascinating about that definition, which has endured for at least 14 years, but most likely it has been around a lot longer is that it doesn't say anything about what's happening on stage. It's all about how are we the audience experience, the experience. And if you do go back as far in history as the 1880s and the Chateau noir and the Caribbean, the beginning of the Caribbean cabaret, there was puppetry, there was poetry. There was you know, people could just get on stage with an easel and some paint and flick it around a bit that's cabaret as long as the audience's eating around drinking and and perhaps a more modern definition but one that Lisa opinion AZ in her book, the cabaret, which was written in 1975, the year I was born, mentioned within the very first chapter I think in the prologue that there is no fourth wall in cabaret

Anne Marie Cannon:

video on that recently.

Paulus:

Yet there is a is that where I take no I take a minute to explain what cabaret is don't take longer to explain what

Anne Marie Cannon:

we're talking about. Yeah, check out the videos are definitely check it out. The UT your YouTube page, I'm talking to the listeners. You will not come back you will go in and you won't come back.

Paulus:

But maybe I shouldn't explain what no fourthwall means but people that don't know me. I'm going,

Anne Marie Cannon:

shall I? There you go. Well, that's true. There's no fourth wall, let's just talk about, you don't have to talk about it.

Paulus:

Go. If you don't know what it is, you have to go to Paul, us, the cabaret geek YouTube channel, and you'll find out from my video,

Anne Marie Cannon:

what is the fourth wall? There you go, the way that the conversation is gone is that this is gonna probably be a two part episode because I can see that we're going on, we're taking a lot of turns coming hopefully back to the main road. But I love it, thank you. I didn't want to go back, I kind of wanted to go back because I want it a little bit about myself. My mother was born in Belgium. And when she was eight years old, her family became refugees, because the war and they ended up in France. So my mother was what I've come to realize is she was probably whatever it means more Belgian than French, but I always thought of her as being French. And you know, everything that you're talking about, with regards to speaking your mind and the war, it reminds me of my mother who passed away three years ago, who had not voted in the United States in 20 years, because she felt that was for the younger people, that the future is for the younger people. That was I don't know if I agree with that. But this last election, she she was terrified, my mother was terrified so much that she was dying. And she went out and voted because she was so afraid. And that really spoke to me about where we are in my sense of like fear and urgency about about what's going on. And I think that's really interesting how you have likened this to that time period. And this idea that cabaret is, is really gonna have a reemergence because of it. And I I love that because I love the aesthetic. I love the aesthetic of cabaret. I love this idea that it's an interaction. And, you know, I know I would have never thought about it in those terms, unless you would just told me that. So thank you.

Paulus:

But you're very welcome. And there's there's a tremendous sort of, I don't know, I find it rather perverse that the two things I'm going to sort of put together here, the history will bear out that there's a nomadic nature, to cabaret, it pops up when and as it's needed, and says, just this like, little annoying thing on your show. If you're in government, you can't do that. We don't like that. It appears when it's needed. It's like a little nip. It's like the little fairy. I mean, Lucia noir is probably one of the most famous cabarets in the history of the world. And it only lasted for six years. And that was across the two venues I was speaking about earlier on. I mean, we do have cameras that have lasted a long time. Lap Han as she lived, which I was teaching in in Paris last year has been around a long time and I believe is now the oldest in the world. And and of course, the Moulin Rouge and the funny Beshear and things like that. But But if I'm very honest, I feel that they are more reviews. These days. I wasn't around when they were first about but they may call themselves cabaret, but I believe that their cabaret only names because having been to the Lido, and when I'm rouge and Crazy Horse in the last five or six years in my trips to Paris, I don't see a lack of fourthwall Well, I see a massive wall between the audience and the performer. And that's really review. It's something rather different. But in fact, cabaret, this underground this small this naysaying dissenter, of the popular and be lucrative sadly, it has been moving around and ducking and diving for over 100 years and it's the blessing and the curse of the damn genre that I'm in love with because cabaret means as I'm sure you know, small room that's what it means.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Okay, didn't know that. I was never very good at French. Well, my immense dismay.

Paulus:

It's a it's a complicated etymology. small room, chamber, wine cellar. And then there's the word camera and and how we can I mean, my husband's Italian and we would say camera to mean to mean bedroom. But and then there's the movie I am camera which the movie musical camera is based on loosely and and all of these very very strange integral parts of the etymology. But essentially the intimacy that you receive as an audience from a cabaret performer from a cabaret show, or you should receive is all down to the fact of the size of a space now, can you do achieve a cabaret and achieve a lack of fourthwall at the Hollywood Bowl or the otu? here in London, I think it's possible but a hell of a lot harder. And, and, and unfortunately, one of the reasons that cabaret has got quite a bad name, I believe in the arts in this country, at least is because it's not financially viable. I mean, the people with the power and the money, aren't really interested in running a cabaret because an intimate small room means a very, very tight cap on how many drinks you can sell how many tickets you can sell, and that's never as desirable is the London Palladium and it's what is it 3000 seats. ATM. So you know, it's it's a tricky one.

Anne Marie Cannon:

And you've been talking about something and I wanted to bring this up, because I keep coming back to this thought when I listened to and watched your video about tribe, that beautiful, beautiful song, very moving brought a tear to my eye. There's like this fine line and you sum it up in this line. In the song It said hopes and dreams are now tropes in memes. And it's, you know, it's like this idea that there's a cabaret it's not lucrative and to bring it to, you know, the Palais de it's like, you know, where is that line? It's a fine line. And you don't know I think that it's about connection. I think ultimately, that what I'm hearing you say is that it's really about the connection. There's a musician I really love. His name is Frank Turner, and he's from England. He used to be a punk rocker. He's now a folk singer, like they all do, because they can't Yeah. Right. That's

Paulus:

my retirement plan. I've got my ukulele already. Look, it's right here. I'm nearly ready.

Anne Marie Cannon:

Though, but he you know, when you're tired, I'm thinking about him. As you're talking. I'm, you know, my brain has gone to all these different places. And he there is an aspect even though he doesn't do cabaret, there is an aspect of what you're talking about, that he does do is that he connects with the audience sees pretty large audiences. You know, not huge, huge, but they're, it's an energy you connect, you know, he really, you know, speaks his mind and says what he thinks and gets that message out there. You know, I think, the which I didn't know this, which I never thought about, because I've never really experienced a whole lot of cabaret, although I did dress up to Sally Bowles one year for when I was Yeah. No, I didn't. But I was, oh, you have to

Paulus:

have the green nail. You know, you know, one of the one of the biggest misnomers about that movie. And the character Sally Bowles is is very tricky there. Again, there is a video on my channel called The trouble with Sally Bowles. And this is this is basically lies this fault for being too talented because if you read the Christopher Isherwood short stories, which can vary based on one of them being cold, called Sally Bowles. And Sally, the whole point of Sally is that she isn't a very good singer. And she and she certainly isn't very successful at what she does. And so, of course, lies that being a tremendous thing and having a huge huge personality and stage presence. The movie version of this story yet the musical movie version of this story is tremendously confusing to the vast general public because they don't understand why this woman is behaving the way she is, and why people are treating her the way that they are. Because she's so talented, whereas the whole point is that she isn't good. And when you go back into the movies that precede cabaret, the movie and and find out and with the Christopher Isherwood stories as well and find out more about Sally. Oh, I see. So that's why she says, everybody loves a winner. That's why she says everybody loves the winner so nobody loves loved me. That's that's the point of the line. And there is an intimacy you're absolutely right. And folk folk will do that to you. I love it myself. There's a singer. She used to be pop and now she classes herself as folk in she's from Scotland and I see her regularly as often as I name is Eddie reader. And she used to be with a band called fairground attraction. And I completely adore her. And her and a musician is one of my meet my friend videos is with her guitarist and songwriter how boohoo we're doing. He's such a nice chap. And when I go to see Eddie perform, even though she is in a big room much bigger than most cabaret spaces, the intimacy she creates by just chatting, chatting, chatting shit is what we would call it in England, and talking about you know, because when, when it comes to folk, the lineage of the songs is so old. She's telling you about how she first heard this song from her great grandmother when she was five years old, and sitting on a daddy's knee at the end of a long weekend, and doing the accents and doing voices and talking about these mad cat weird things that used to be completely acceptable to his families and to children. You know, drinking a swig of beer when you're five years old, and things like that. And, and there's a lovely intimacy to that I want to meet a performer when I go and see cabaret. And often when I teach people, we discuss the difference between cabaret and con and a concert, for example, I would just say to them, you know, so what, what's the difference between a concert? And to cover a? Who's been to a concert? Who thinks they've seen a concert? And who thinks they've seen a cabaret into, you know, and what is the difference? And it's, it's curious, you know, sometimes I run courses to people in their 40s 50s 60s. And they pay me a lot of money to come and work with me. And they haven't asked these very basic questions before they turn up. But that's okay. Because that's why I'm I think you have to share something of yourself. I think that's, that's the essence of it. And when you were talking about Frank, earlier on, was thinking about the pedestal and the spotlight. And, and these are only these people, I'm about to mention only examples. I'm not trying to sort of get at them. But if you think about Barbra Streisand or Celine Dion in that there's a, there's a majesty, there's a garanzia, there's an untouchability. And with fame comes and then the big machine that you get with it, and your entourage and all the money and stuff like that. And security, of course, that that all of that, that you become more and more and more and more untouchable, the more loved you are, Prince, oh, by the way, and all of these you know, you can these people who actually were not snotty people were not, you know, didn't dislike their fans are distinct for their fans, but still there they as the distance, the bigger the auditorium, the bigger the spotlight, the larger the supertree, but that's following you around the stage that the more disconnected you're going to be from, who is supposed to be your people or your tribe. Suppose Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the sadness, a great sadness. Luckily, I don't have to worry about it because I'm not that famous. I'm barely famous to to, hopefully people will forget the TV program I made quite soon and I can just go back.

Anne Marie Cannon:

We're gonna stop here for today. But there is so much more to come in part two of my interview with Paulus. Also there will be a big reveal at the end of that interview, you won't want to miss it. The intro and outro music in this episode tribe the instrumental version, performed by Jordan Clarke is from the forthcoming queer fairy tale musical building palace.