I'm Ready For My Close Up - Anybody!
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One cold dark wintry Sunday night I had a booking at a club in Top Valley, a notorious estate in Nottingham. We arrived early about 7pm and the club, which looked like a bungalow overlooking the estate, was in darkness with no sign of life at all. John went to the club door and came back saying: "I can see a poster in the entrance hall it says ‘Des Quemby guitar vocalist’! A while later a man came to open up the club, so my husband went to see him and said: "I think there has been a mistake, my wife is a comic called Dee Quemby." He replied: "Nothing to do with me, you'll have to see our president when he comes." At least he let us in and we carried the PA into the concert room. The stage was about 6" off the floor, about 2’0" wide and ran the length of the room. There was a shower curtain at the end of the stage containing a chair and I was assured this was the dressing room! I was also very concerned that there was a billiard table right in front of the stage. A few men started to arrive and they began to play billiards on the table. The president eventually made his grand entrance and was very put out when John gave him the news that his guitar vocalist for the night was nothing of the sort. "We always have a male guitar vocalist on a Sunday. It's too late to get anyone else now, she'll have to go on," he said in a huff. The club was getting full by now and the local football team came in. I peered out of the shower curtain and the billiard table - thank God – had disappeared. Club doormen can be very droll, late one night after finishing a show I was standing in the foyer when an irate woman came barging back into the club loudly jangling her car keys. "I've got one stuck up me front and one stuck up me rear" she announced before
The place was packed and it was time for me to appear. The president walked out onto the stage, picked up the microphone and tapped it three times, why do they all do this? He then made an introduction I don't think I'll ever forget if I live to be normal! "Ladies and gentlemen, we always have a guitar vocalist on a Sunday night, but tonight we have a young lady doing comedy and I sincerely hope this is not going to spoil anybody's night, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Dee Quemby” and out I walked! However, the audience was great. I went over time and finished up doing nearly two hours and had a wonderful night. The football crowd were out for a laugh and two old ladies, who had sat near my husband, put the ‘icing on the cake’ when they said at the end: "We've had a real good night, we get fed up with all them guitar vocalists every Sunday." Good on ‘em!
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About the Book
Dee Quemby’s book is not just a wonderfully warm read but a very actual account of the most demanding and difficult life in show business, that of the COMEDIAN! I told Dee many moons ago that she should enter the idiom that is the easiest life in showbusiness, that of the TV drama actor. That of course she has done to grand acclaim. Get the book it's a great read! BILL maynard I made my stage debut with Deirdre. Her book is a collector's item. It reads like a social and theatrical history of our time. DAVID NEILSON ('ROY CROPPER' - CORONATION STREET) Deirdre was my first dancing teacher for 13 years and I owe her a great debt. She is a very talented performer in her own right and it would be great to dance with her again. I still think there’s something very big around the corner for her! Stephen Mear (Tony nominee and Olivier winning choreographer of Mary Poppins)
Dee was brilliant as Emmerdale’s Lulu Dingle. But if she’d had access to Lulu’s crystal ball and been able to see how tough it would be for a mainstream comedienne to get a break in modern TV, would she have persevered? Dee’s book is moving, honest and funny.
Garry Bushell (tv critic)
Dee (Deirdre) Quemby has had a long and varied career as a stand up comic on the working men's club circuit, TV actress, panto dame, after dinner speaker, children’s entertainer, clown, BBC radio presenter, compere, tap dancer, Joan Collins lookalike, Maggie Thatcher impersonator, Punch and Judy Professor 'Dippy Dee', script writer, stage dance teacher, ladies nights and 40s nights promoter and honorary drag queen! During this time she has had many moments of hilarity and heartbreak as do most people in the hard world of showbiz! She has now added another string to her bow as an author and shares many of these moments with you. Extremely funny and truthful, a 'warts and all' account of life as a female entertainer. One chapter carries a sensitivity warning (the one about the strippers and drag queens!)About the Author