Well, Chocfest was a weird one this year. Selby abbey is, of course, stunning and impressive, and the high ceilings were awesome. Even Alby and I were passing tall and floaty. But actual floor space seemed a bit lacking and going into the building from the very grand, majestic frontage into the rather dark, crowded interior was a bit of a let down. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, however, seeing as there was no bugger there. Very disconcerting, what with Chocfest being synonymous in my mind with noisy, smelly hordes ready to indulge after the Christmas juggling drought.
I wandered round for most of the day with my hands in my pockets feeling a bit bored. We managed some alright passing, but I don’t think either of us was particularly in the mood. I got rather a lot of hugs, and Libby cheered me up by honking my boobies and being disgustingly beautiful. But it seemed like most people just wanted to take pretty pictures with their poncy cameras or stand around and chat (shudder). Darren and Alan took me to WH Smith and I treated myself to a couple of books (not without embarking on an audible monologue about how it was alright for me to treat myself every now and again). And then I talked bollocks with Miark and Maddy for an hour or two or three and we went for pub food which, incidentally, must have been absurdly nutritiously vacant because I could feel myself drain of energy and enthusiasm after I’d eaten it, and I sat around feeling like a big grey lump for the next hour or so.
The lead up to the show had Chocfest written all over it. We queued in the cold for half an hour after doors were supposed to open and it was only our natural belligerance that kept us going. But then we were let in and some sort of show happened. I don’t feel particularly able to do a proper scored review though cause I didn’t really see any of it. Certainly not the first half, anyway. Hats off to Mats for being at all visable for a good proportion of his routine. As for hula girl and Donald Grant, who knows? The only bit I caught of the Catrabats was a lovely image of Girly being hefted up, legs splayed, with crotch gloriously displayed to the audience. Nice.
After putting up with the tediously long-winded cake competition results I moved seats during the interval and then sat through the tediously long winded raffle. What I saw of Sarah seemed alright; nothing special. Donald Grant’s second bit seemed snappy and cool although, alas, I didn’t get to see much of the mini-kilt. Becca Smith was nice and flowy and girly and (if I’d been scoring) would have got a bonus point for having hair like Dick Van Dyke dressed up as the jack-in-the-box in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. CNPK, whilst being unconsionably French and arty, had some pretty nifty moves and a touch of the old continental sensualness about them (which I certainly didn’t approve of), despite being essentially a girl in a slutty dress and (yet again) a white man in a black vest top juggling white silicons. Sigh.
I slept all the way home after an adequate day.