What happens when you lose it all? Everything falls apart overnight through no fault of your own. The Fabulettes have had a tumultuous year, experiencing the ruthless and brutal side of the industry. Like true pros though, they’ve dusted themselves off, risen up – one might say in a supreme manner – and they are back performing again. This week Jason Reid caught up with Vicki Vivacious, who had plenty to say….
It’s been a while since we chatted. You guys have had an eventful past year, right?
This time last year we were on an upward journey. We were preparing to go to America, filling out visa forms, and everything was going so well. Then in August we received an email from our manager saying he’d gone bankrupt and that it was all over. It literally happened overnight. All of our future bookings were of course cancelled too.
How did you all deal with that?
Well, we all had our individual meltdowns. Eventually we decided to pick ourselves up and carry on. For legal reasons we changed the name of the group from The Supreme Fabulettes to The Fabulettes. We didn’t know if our manger had lost the rights to the name and we wanted to play it safe. And then, due to personal circumstances, Vanilla Lush had to bow out. We went from being a four piece (with Sheila Simmonds) about to tour America, to a three piece trying to scrape together a few pub gigs. One extreme to the other. Thank god we’re really good friends because we all helped each other out.
Will Vanilla be returning to the group?
The door is open for Vanilla. We’d love to have her back when she’s able to return.
I’ve always believed it’s important to take the positive from any situation, and it seems you’ve done that?
That saying ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ is a cliché but so true. You MUST make the best out of a bad situation. I mean, we’re owed more money than anyone could imagine. The good thing is, we managed to hang on to all of the costumes and were able to shove the dresses in the bags and say ‘let’s get cracking’.
Has anything changed with regards to the content of your shows as a result of all this?
Not at all. We’re still going to be bringing all the glamour and live music numbers we did before.
I hope Silver is still singing Diamonds, too?
Yes! She’ll be singing that song till the day she dies.
She’s damn good at it. What’s next for The Fabulettes?
We’re booked for all the Pride events this year, and we have a good relationship with the Two Brewers, so we perform there regularly, as well as other venues on and around the scene. The most amazing thing that’s come out of all this, is that we were contacted by William Baker, who we’ve worked with before. He wants to help create a new London show for both summer and Christmas. Rehearsals start in a few weeks. We feel very lucky to now have that same creative team fully supporting us.
Do you want to return to theatres?
Yes, we’d love to. But we want to keep that relationship with the gay scene. A relationship that our previous manager never allowed us to have. We felt very restricted and now we have more freedom.
Would you have a manager again?
Previously we had zero input. That’s the truth. And because I have 100% creative control of my solo career I’m not a massive fan of being told what to do. I’d be happy to go down the management route for the benefit of the group, but there would have to be rules and agreements made. We were treated like mugs by our previous manager and I would never allow that to happen to myself or my friends again.
• The Fabulettes will be performing at the WayOut Club on Saturday 19th March
