Oh The Fairies

Oh, the Fairies, whoa, the Fairies
Nothing but splendour and feminine gender.
Oh, the Fairies, whoa, the Fairies
Oh for the wing of a Fairy Queen.

We went to a matinee Music Hall show by the Players Theatre company today, and what a fantastic time we had...With sing-along songs such as Daisy Daisy and Hold Your Hand Out You Naughty Boy, performed by some true stalwarts of the theatre, we were in our element!

With what must possibly have been the oldest audience in the world ever - just by walking into the theatre we managed to lower the average age by about twenty years - it was a miracle there was any audience interaction at all, but everybody joined in to the best of their ability. Half of them didn't need the song sheets, as they probably remembered the songs from the first time around.

The Players Theatre has been going since 1936, and is a camp old institution. Indeed the company's traditional opening number is a song called Oh, the Fairies. Its original home was under the Villiers Street arches opposite gay mega-club Heaven, but despite losing that premises they have maintained the traditions made famous on the BBC in The Good Old Days ever since.

There were some great performances indeed - especially Mr Peter John's rendition of Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Forty - and to celebrate I found a version of this that is startlingly similar:

Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Forty