Lozapalooza
Lozapalooza
Acorn Arts Theatre
When much-loved and highly regarded film director, Laura Hardman, died suddenly last year, the Cornish arts world went into collective mourning. Eight months on and they gathered together to raise funds for Max and Jasper, the very young children Laura left behind.
The Acorn Arts Theatre was bursting at the seams with the great and the good who wanted to be part of an evening to celebrate and remember their friend. With Carl Grose and Bill Scott mentioned as taking the reins as joint compere for the evening and strong rumours of men in tights, tickets for the event sold out early. The opening act was, indeed, men in tights – not only tights, but black lycra and several yards of pink net to boot. Hescape Dance Troupe involved the Harvey brothers, Simon, Brett and Dan, along with John Crooks, Sean Donohue, Steve Tanner and Mark Jenkin. Choreographed by Cscape’s Helen Tiplady, this first ever live performance brought the house down and proved an appetising taster for what was to come.
Damien Edwards performed a beautiful acoustic set, finishing with a fine rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Damien was closely followed by local comedienne, Mary Anne Bloomfield, who regaled us with tales of her crazy family and her dogs. Back to the music with the wonderful Dalla who were joined for their last number by Will Coleman on bagpipes. As Dalla left the stage, Will launched into a fantastic story of how the magical land of Kernow came to be; seemingly it has much to do with God himself having a few bevvies with a couple of Cornish boys back along. Closing the first half with a fabulous acoustic set was none other than Ruarri Joseph, who was almost, but not quite, upstaged by a tiny person clambering across the set. Ruarri took it in his stride and offered him a job – it was that kind of night!
A grand auction of fabulous stuff opened the second half, hosted by Carl Grose along with Pearl & Dean; the auction raised huge amounts of money as well as laughter. To keep the money coming in, Elspeth and Marion and their Charity Shop Cabaret ran amok with the raffle and bingo as only they could. Pearl & Dean returned to the stage to perform a brilliant – if slightly odd, medley of Laura’s favourite songs. Super-poopers were up next, an unlikely name for 3 lovely ladies singing the Kate Bush classic ‘Wuthering Heights’ in the style of the Andrews Sisters. More laughs followed when Rosie Hughes and her lovely mum took the room by storm with a visual rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. The evening drew to a close all too quickly and Carl finally announced the closing act to be Danny and the Cockrockers – with a storming cover of ‘Crazy Horses’, Brett Harvey has added a new string to his bow as a stylophone player supreme. The boys, aided and abetted by the audience, closed the night with a rockin’ version of Dusty’s ‘Son of a Preacher Man’.
A night such as this can’t happen without behind the scenes help, which was freely given by the Acorn staff, the theatre was dressed by Sean Donohue, Hana Backland & Uffy, Stephen Parker of 2Twenty2.com generously paid for the venue and donated £600 worth of auction lots.
So, that was Lozapalooza 2010, which raised somewhere between five and six thousand pounds for the Max and Jasper Trust Fund. How will the multi-talented bunch top this in 2011? I intend to be there to find out.
Sheila Vanloo
February 2010
