Tutus and Tank Tops: A Dance of Discontent on the Streets of London
It was a day just like any other in London: drizzle, a bit of drizzle, then some more drizzle, all punctuated by the glorious honks of double-decker buses. But today, darling, things were about to get a whole lot more theatrical!
Word on the street, whispered from the mouth of a street performer's makeup compact, was that a horde of tutu-clad women were planning to march on Buckingham Palace. And no, they weren’t auditioning for the Royal Ballet. These ladies, it seems, had a bone to pick.
The culprit, dear reader, was the dreaded "tutu tax"! Apparently, a recent surge in tulle production (thanks to that booming baby boomer ballerina demographic) had led to a drastic increase in the price of our beloved ballet wear. Imagine! The unthinkable! A good, frothy, billowing tutu, the very heart of our balletic identity, suddenly unaffordable?
It was, quite frankly, a scandal! And so, these fierce ballerinas took to the streets, their pointe shoes a-tap, a symphony of indignation in every pirouette.
- I spotted darling Daphne, a 65-year-old retired prima ballerina with a shock of magenta hair, carrying a banner that read "No Tutus, No Peace!".
- Then there was the lovely Penelope, who had just begun a beginners class at the grand old age of 72, with a sign protesting the "tutu-cratic regime"!
- And my personal favourite? A little 10-year-old, with a sparkly tutu more fit for a Disney princess than a protest march, defiantly yelling, "My Tutu! It's My Destiny! "
The entire city, normally quite used to street theatre of a different kind (we're talking men in kilt-inspired outfits singing about Scotland!), stopped dead in their tracks.
"Excuse me, love, are these women staging a fashion show?" Asked a bemused gentleman in a bowler hat.
"They're ballerinas protesting the price of tulle, silly!" His wife chirped, a little smugly, before hopping onto the bus and announcing to the whole vehicle "And they've got the *right* idea!".
But it wasn’t just the tulle that sparked this ballet of rebellion. This was, darling, about a whole way of life! The sheer (and yes, very, very, very sheer) frustration that comes with an inability to access a decent, poofy, pouffy tutu! Think about it - how can one possibly do an entrechat, let alone a pirouette, with an inadequate tutu? It's like asking a rugby player to run without a scrum – absolute sacrilege!
Thankfully, our noble sovereign, no stranger to a fancy frolic (what with all those royal balls and such), felt their plight and promptly offered a compromise: a £1 million "tutu subsidy". This, my dears, is how we maintain social order in England.
And as for our disgruntled ballerinas, well, they went home, exhausted but happy, their pointe shoes clacking against the cobblestone, ready for their next performance, this time back in their studios. As one of them told me: "We might not have gotten a free tutu, but at least we’ve proved, dear, that a ballerinas' heart, it can break! But also... you know… bounce right back!”
And so, the tutu crisis was averted, at least for now. But this, darling, isn't the last you've heard of this. Because, when it comes to tulle and our passion for ballet, we will never back down!
