From tight-wire to hula hoops, Abigail Collins fills her life with excitement and laughter.

Abigail Collins, a professional cabaret/street performer who quit the Royal Ballet School, found love at Glastonbury Festival, ran away to Australia, travelled the world, and came back to Britain, tells me her life story.

Photograph taken by Diarmuid McDonald.

The first thing that pops into mind when thinking about cabaret or street performers is leotards, tutu’s, crystal covered corsets. However, as Abigail Collins, 46, greets me with a firm handshake, I see her laidback ponytail and comfortable looking sportswear. Not what I was expecting for a vibrant, professional artist.

Abigail is a professional street performer. What that means is, with the use of circus skills that she picked up on in Bristol (after running away from the Royal Ballet School because not only did she lose interest, but because she believed that there was more in life than a strict routine) cabaret and her love for performing, she tells amazing stories by performing shows with the use of funny characters to create cheer and laughter. ‘My work is I like doing funny stuff… the relief of doing comedy and making people laugh.’

As a shy child growing up in Dagenham, Abigail always loved to dance, sing, jump around, create stories. ‘I can remember being really small and making costumes and wearing my mum’s wedding dress…’ Her parents were one of the many influences on what she has become today. Abigail’s mum would always take her to dance classes every week at Barons Court. Even though Abigail didn’t like it, one of the most memorable quotes her mum said to her was, ‘yeah, scrub round it,' in other words just quit. With that in mind, she ditched dance classes and started to do gymnastics and trampolining. ‘The thing that I like to do and have always done is from the age of seven I did impressions of Shirley Bassey and Margaret Thatcher.’

From that moment on, after doing a bachelor's degree at Goldsmiths and a masters in drama at Bristol, Abigail succeeded at stepping out of her comfort zone by joining the circus school in Bristol, where she learnt the tight-wire and trapeze.

Even though Abigail’s early life was full of colour and inspiration to what she has become, the true push that made her go into street performing was for love. “I went to Glastonbury festival doing this kind of trapeze show and doing some improvisations stuff and I met this man, who I ended up marrying and ran off with him to Australia…we spent ten years together travelling the world and doing street shows, doing educational theatre, doing all sorts of stuff.”

Photograph taken by Diarmuid McDonald.

During those ten years, Abigail has explored and travelled to countries more than most. She has always loved learning languages, from learning French at school to translating many of her shows from Italian to Japanese. ‘I’m really good at picking up words.’ This makes her connection with the audience deeper as by interacting with her audience indicates her love for her profession. After splitting up from ten years of marriage, Abigail carried on street performing relocating herself back to the UK whilst touring solo. ‘Femme Expose was my second street show and that occurred after my marriage broke up. I had quite a rough time and I decided to put my heart and soul into that show.’

Abigail Collins- Une Femme Exposée.flv

Credit: Abigail Collins(YouTube)

Not only does she put her heart and soul into every show, but Abigail also creates many amazing characters. One of her favourite characters that she loves to play is called Peggy Sued. Peggy is a washed-up Vegas drunk, who has been divorced ten times and with Abigail’s skills, she incorporates them into the character story. With ten hula hoops each symbolising a failed marriage, Abigail gives humour to a topic she is familiar with. Love.

Even though Abigail tries to show the humorous side of life, some characters provide a deeper message that show the current issues, that many face today. Katinka, a Russian ballerina from the 'Bullshit Ballet,' is an immigrant, one of the many topics we face today and Abigail’s favourite story. ‘I make a joke and I know that people are not going to laugh, and I say it’s ok I understand that you don’t like it when I come to your country and I take your sense of humour, but you don’t mind it when I clean your toilets. The problem we’ve got now is that people don’t understand the vehicle of a joke.’

With this, she decided to spread her roots by working with many other artists, famous and non-famous and directing many shows. Last autumn she worked with some young artists in Great Yarmouth to do a project called Make Great Yarmouth Great Again. ‘I worked with those guys by coming up with some skills and ideas and how they could interact with the public.’ But not all projects are political. Martin Soames, a club runner who runs a club called Pull the Other One in Nunhead, is one of many memorable places where Abigail has done a show. Pull the Other One is famous for having a twist in its performances. Normally you have a warm up act and then the main person, whereas here the famous person is the warm up act and the “other one,” is a person that you have never heard of. ‘When I did it, Alan Davies was my warm up act and I was like oh my god, I can’t go after Alan Davies. This is horribly nerve wracking.’ But with Abigail’s sense of humour and amazing tricks, she not only won the heart of the audience but had also amazed Alan Davies himself.

Peggy Sued

Photograph taken by Diarmuid McDonald.

After doing twenty years of performing, Abigail does not look like she will be stopping soon. ‘People keep saying when I’m going to stop doing this and I’m like well I’m not. When I can’t do it anymore is when people don’t want to see me perform.’ Though Abigail creates shows and characters to tell the audience of deep issues, the reason she has carried on for so many years is to leave a message with the audience and to maybe make a difference in today's society. ‘For me it’s about the compassion and critical thinking. There’s a lot of ladies in the toilets and men in the club’s that I work in, they usually come for a better life. If I can make one person give the toilet man or lady a tip then maybe I’ve made a little bit of difference in the world. I’ve done a good thing.’ By doing characters like Katinka, she is changing attitudes of many.