Sacre bleu!
        They live, they breathe!
        Such opulence and rich embroidery. Such decadent finery.
        Ms Antoinette's puppet gallery will seduce you with its splendour and charm you with grandeur.
        But what of the peasants?
        Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!
        What strange life exists behind those cold glass eyes?
        Venture closer and you will find that there is warmth beneath that porcelain façade and cold passion within that alabaster shell. 
        Their fine elegance is beauty to behold. Take in hand a Champagne Coup whilst you allow yourself to ponder the comely shape of this exquisite marionette, for their curves are one and the same.
        Indulge yourself in the unworldly decadence of these fascinating creatures and let the celebrations begin!
        Your head will wonder at the madness and your pulse will race as La finta schiava plays mischief with your own heart strings.
        The wonder of this magical Fantoccini will stay with you to the end of days.
        Look closer, if you dare. Within those hollow shells beat hollow hearts. If they fall, they bleed. Theirs is a world of flagrant fantasy and, if you believe, then you too will see.
        But such lavish eccentricity can last only so long.
        Prepare your heart for the shattering denouement. Hark to the woeful cries uttered from mouths that never move. When light fades and the guillotine is raised above that pretty neck trepidation will take to your heart and tears of tragedy will fill your eyes.
        …and you will witness a moment in time that has no place in our world of reason.

Burnie Fire started his sparkling career in the souks of Istanbul, where he glimmered and gleamed his way through act after act of danger. He comes of a long line of professional fire eaters - not those who just play at this exalted role, but those for whom fire is their real and genuine meat and drink. He is, in short, transformed by fire as the phoenix from the ashes. Fire is his natural element. You have to be very careful when you meet him and shake his hand. If you catch him at the peak of his regular cycle of transformation, he will be hot to the touch, ready to burn up and re-coagulate around the burnt flesh. You will draw your hand back in alarm, but he will merely smile lazily at you, his eyes glinting.

Robert Sword is the last spiritual descendant of the ancient samurai warriors of Japan. He learned his craft of sword swallowing at the sharp end - first in the expensive boutiques of Tokyo where those deadly curved blades are still sold at fantastic prices, and then in the mountain retreats where those graceful actions of this profession are taught. It is, admittedly, especially hard to swallow a samurai sword as it is curved, but Robert has got the delicate negotiation of his oesophagus down to a fine art. He is no ordinary artiste. At times he cuts his flesh with the blade, but it simply re-forms, white and whole, around the lacerated area. This is the fruit of years of special training. When you meet him, you will see that his movements have become quick and lithe to match the flow of his beloved blades.

He does very little you think. Stood there, black cape, top hat. It is such a terrible act you are tempted to throw your opera glasses at him just to get a reaction. Just stood there. Rubbish. Get off. Once you saw him scratch his nose. Then he looks around, out beyond the limelight into the audience, looking right at you. Bored again he looks down at his feet. 

When you get up to go out, to sneak into the bar and wait for the next act you suddenly stop, confused. What were you going to do? Weren't you supposed to be doing something else? Better to just get out, go home, sort it all out. Almost in a panic you push past the other members of the audience, who are, for some reason, rapt, their attention entirely focused on the barely animate man upon the stage. Bah, what a waste of time this has been, what a bloody charlatan. 

It is only as you rush up the stairs between the aisles and finally reach the exit that the applause begins, cheering, whoops, people standing to clap.

All you can do is take a bow.

The illusion is complete.

The Clerkenwell Chanteuse. The Wapping Warbler. The Stepney Songbird. World-renowned purveyor of the bawdy ballad and the licentious lyric. The chronicler of comic capers and criminal catastrophes. The last surviving eyewitness to the Plague and the Fire and the Ripper.

As famed for her highs as she is for her lows.

See the grand old lady of musical melodrama hitch up her skirts as she belts out her latest self-penned ditty, featuring the grotesque misadventures of a gambling addicted inebriate who paid a pretty penny for failing to honour his debts.

An extract of which is as follows -

(Many other songs of equally dire consequence contained in Ma's extensive repertoire)

From the catacombs of Caracas, led by the unearthly Contessa Marisa del Bono, come Las Grimgirls. Shiver as they rouse the spirits of your dearly departed and dance them into something like life. Bones rattle. Flesh crackles. These are the mistresses of the forgotten steps: the spectral waltz, L'Estertor, the Can-Can of the cadavers. Once seen, never forgotten. Las Grimgirls have been performing these routines for four hundred years, entertaining - among others - the court of Louis XIV, Mad King Johann of Bohemia, Joseph Stalin, and the Cabinet of George W. Bush. Their movements, at once painfully intimate, powerfully sexual, and disturbingly grotesque, have been said to turn human blood cold - literally. Don't take off your coat!

He juggles with his thumbs. Maybe it's not impressive: he was only blessed with two of them before the necessary amputation. His hands now resemble children's spades ready to shovel sand on the beach.

Yet he's fast and surprisingly adept for one so blighted. He moves like the blades on a waterwheel, picking up and discarding, faster and faster in his contained rotation until dexterity becomes a blur becomes persistence of vision becomes a peculiar feeling that he is somehow operating backwards and instead of throwing objects from one hand to the other - across, up and back - of a sudden our Teddy seems to be plucking items fully formed out of thin air!

"Surely that cannot be right?" you maintain.

Your wife arrived tonight sporting gold bangles and pearl drop earrings; did Teddy's fingers relieve her of this bejewelled burden? "My fob watch!" you cry. It arcs left to right along with other clock ware garnered from fellow members in the auditorium, for Teddy is a master of manipulation and with his current prestidigitation is - briefly - controlling the passage of time.

Many have heeded the advice not to sit in the front row for fear of intrusive comedians. Snapdragon by both name and nature, Teddy reminds you that there is no safe seat in the entire house.

One evening a forewarned audience arrived naked and without accoutrements, as if daring our damned juggler, cajoling him: "You can't find anything on us this time, pal." Teddy was not put out of his stride. He limited his sorcery to his own, removable body parts. The show must go on. Always.

(Clockhouse London Writers performed in the following order: Sandra Unerman, Mark Lewis, Allen Ashley, Gary Budgen, Susan Oke, David Turnbull, Sarah Doyle, Gary Power, Rima Devereaux, Gary Budgen, David Turnbull, David McGroarty, and Allen Ashley.)