Bernadette Russell is a writer, actor, comedian and long time resident of Deptford, who was born in Germany and grew up in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Those three locations are probably enough information for a police profile, which might say “possible criminal tendencies”.
A bit of a biog!
Acting
As an actor I have toured extensively nationally and internationally, I have performed in big theatres, small theatres, parks, inside lifts, phone boxes, disused hospitals, old people’s homes, schools, art galleries, underground warehouses and nightclubs. I have worked with David Grindley (Donmar Warehouse) David Harradine (Fevered Sleep) Sue Buckmaster (Theatrerites) Raz Shaw, Josette Bushell-Mingo, David Gale, Deborah Levy, John Wright, Gerry Flanagan, Mick Barnfather, Penny Dreadful, People Show, Stans Café, Gary Stevens, Shunt, and Gerry Pilgrim.
Comedy
As a comedian I was privileged for many years to be the shorter half of the now legendary anarcho-vaudeville double act Wonderhorse, together with Christine Entwisle. Our show delighted and disgusted in equal measure, and we performed at Madam Jojos, Spiegeltent, the Mervyn Stutter show, Lenny Beige show, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, Komedia Brighton, Jazz Café, Duckies, Shunt Vaults Cabaret, Andrew Bailey’s Well Out Of Vaudeville, Up The Creek and many sticky carpeted pubs around London. We performed once in Birmingham at the Student’s Union bar, and after Chris shot me out of a golden cannon shaped liked a giant penis whilst playing the theme to 2001 on her euphonium, we got booed off stage by a load of rugby players, and, fearing for our lives, dressed only in our school leotards and fishnets, we made our escape. I have since returned to perform in the West Midlands, but in the relative safety of the Warwick Arts Centre.
As a solo comic, I perform as the character Toni Galore, a glamorous amorous singer songwriter, who comperes, notably at Madam Jojos for Finger in The Pie. Toni’s show “An Evening With Toni Galore” is curently doing the rounds of cabaret clubs, an excerpt of which will soon be on youtube.
Coming up are the new mini lectures from the aristocratic bearded Lady Indigo – more news about Lady Indigo’s philosophical musings will be posted here soon. Lady Indigo hosts the private members “Hellfire Club”.
Writing
When I was very small (and I was VERY small, which is why I honed my judo skills in later childhood) everyone else went out at playtime and I stayed in with my pink-rimmed national health glasses to write my “book” called The Adventures Of Thathilegthornjessie. I have still to finish the book, about the adventures of a vegetarian dinosaur, which I started when I was four, but I am still a little bit the bespectacled tiddler who stays in to write when everyone else is playing kiss chase. Vive La Geek! I say.
Coming from a devising theatre background means I have over the years managed to hone some writing skills with the safety of co-writers, in the last four years I started writing solo again, first with the “Museum of Miracles” for the Old Vic as part of the International Workshop Festival, which became a performance installation at the People Show Studios. I then wrote “A Tribute To Hammer House Of Horror” with Celine Hispiche, which we performed at the Green Carnation in Soho to great acclaim, (“that was hilarious!” Matthew Kelly)
My short stories are published by Ether Books and Pulp Press, and an album of spoken word stories is on itunes. (aptly titled Are You Sitting Comfortably #1)
I have also written and performed my shows for: for Shunt, Deptford X, Hoxton Hall, Soho Theatre, Assembly Rooms, Jackson’s Lane, Freud Museum, National Theatre, and the Thames Festival.
Since October 2008 I have been running, writing and performing for Are You Sitting comfortably? at Toynbee Studios; in October 2009 we were invited to The Basement in Brighton to produce Are You Sitting Comfortably? there.
