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The New Improved Red Ribbon RIOT packed The Club to capacity for yet another amazing wing and a prayer production.

There were some seriously good acts here, not just people voicing over, but some great voices in their own right doing covers of hits that sounded better than the hits themselves. Things were never allowed to get too serious though with good doses of comedy pacing the songs and dance. It would be extremely difficult to pick the best acts as clearly everyone who walked on to the stage was giving their heart and soul to the performance. The talent and commitment was dazzling and no one could doubt that months of effort had gone into planning and rehearsing this spectacular show.

For me, the most memorable moment has to be one of Bobs talky bits pitched in around the middle of the show. Imagine The Club, full to capacity, people are jostling at the bar and there is the usual background buzz... Bob is quoting Ian Kramer from the UK Coalition of People Living with AIDS....

“We wake with this disease, eat and breathe with it, work with it, make love with it, sleep with it and wake with it again. It is a 24, 7, 365 proposition. It has no business hours, no working week, there are no days off and no holidays. It is not my job; it is the rest of my life. It has bitten me to the core of my being in the place where I most intimately relate to others. Like my shadow it follows me wherever I go. Unlike my shadow it even follows me in the dark, under the covers into what used to be the safety of my bed”.

The Club has got quieter and quieter as Bob speaks so that when he finishes with “I know how he feels” it hangs in the air for several heart stopping seconds before everyone starts to applaud. “Oh shut up”, he says “we’ve got a show to get on with” and the moment has past but its impact never will. For in that moment a substantial part of Stoke’s gay scene heard what HIV is really like from a member of their own community and somehow the epidemic became real. There were other talky bits - the increase in heterosexual transmission, affected families, the good work of Staffordshire Buddies...If anyone ever doubted that this was an educational event as well as entertainment they obviously weren’t there. And if ever there was proof of the need to involve people living with HIV in educating others this was it.

Anyway, I wouldn’t want you to think it was all deadly serious. “The Cottage People” – I’ve never laughed so much in years.

My thanks go to Bob and all at wing and a prayer for masterminding the event, to The Club for hosting it, and to all the performers, stage crew, choreographers and helpers who gave freely of their time to make it happen. The very substantial donation raised by the New Improved Red Ribbon RIOT will be put into our support fund – every penny will directly help local people living with HIV/AIDS in need.

If you missed the show its not too late to catch up with it on video. Following a line from one of the Riot’s adverts “It was jolly good”.

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