History themed events

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When it comes to themed parties, many people tend to pick something based on a television show, film or book series. They might even theme it around the current time of year or something that’s currently in the news. But why not have more historical parties? History themed events can be great fun.

It’s no good holding your historical themed party in a venue that doesn’t suit what you’re aiming for. Sure, you could probably hold your event in the local village hall but it doesn’t exactly scream Henry VIII and grandiose, does it? What we’re trying to say is that it doesn’t really scream ‘ye olde’ when it was built in the 1970s. No, what you need is to hire a venue for your event that actually has a bit of history to it! We’re thinking Historical Royal Palace Hampton Court Palace, Banqueting House or even the British Museum, which has a fine catalogue of ancient items nestled within its walls. So if you want to go historical, start with the setting!

We know that not all people like fancy dress, deeming it to be a lot of effort compared to just turning up in your work clothes. But not every event has a historical theme affixed to it! Costumes are a must if you want to take guests back in time properly and if you’re really wanting to make your party stand out, why not hire costumed characters to complete the look? Coming with astonishingly detailed costumes that make for fabulous photos, we provide actors who can play anyone from history be it a poor peasant worker through to royalty!Don’t forget to hire a costume for yourself as well!

Well it’d hardly be a historical affair without some form of comedy would it? The royals famously enjoyed being entertained at their banquets by many a fool and you can recreate this by hiring royal footmen or jesters to add to the flavour of your historically themed event. They don’t just meet and greet either; the jesters are able to perform on stilts, entertain with incredible acrobatics and can even hula hoop if you ask them to! t their antics!

It Isn’t really a party if you don’t have music now, is it? We acknowledge that the idea of long summer nights is now a couple of months behind us, but that’s no excuse not to have some form of olde entertainment front and centre for guests to enjoy. Be they providing background music or a short and intimate show, lutists are sure to impress. With full regalia as standard, you’ll almost certainly believe that you have gone back in time.

Christmas party ideas

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There are lots of ways to celebrate Christmas at the end of year office party. Many companies go for a themed occasion, but you can also strip it back a little bit. Away from the electronic entertainment and acts that require a loud sound system. You can take it all the way back to traditional Christmas party ideas, perhaps highlighting the true values of the holiday.

Victorian Performers
When thinking back to Victorian times, you might find yourself wondering what they managed to do with themselves with no television or films. We know, it’s hard to imagine. Of course, it was the theatre that they loved to visit and no doubt they were entertained by street performers en route.

Parlour Games
With all this wonderful entertainment on display, you might be thinking of wanting to hire interactive entertainment! This doesn’t mean that you need to sacrifice your Victorian theme and bring in loud noises and bright lights; we’re talking parlour games like quoits. If anyone is successful then they may just win a Christmas present from the company or maybe a little more time off. Go on, be generous, it’s Christmas!

Costumed Characters
The number one thing you need to do if your employees are going to really feel as though they’ve gone back in time is to hire costumed characters. They don’t have to be famous Victorians but one or two certainly look nice (Charles Dickens for example), whilst others can mingle with the crowds, adding to the atmosphere of the occasion. A Dickensian Christmas is actually another popular theme; why not add Scrooge to the festivities whilst you’re at it?

Christmas Carol Singers
What Victorian Christmas party is complete without some Christmas carol singers. The best thing about this form of musical entertainment is that the group can wander about the venue, singing as they go, or you can make their background music a centre piece to the party.

Christmas Brass Band
A Christmas brass band can provide all the Christmas classics your party requires. They can either stick to strictly Victorian carols or play a few more modern Christmas hits once the drinks start flowing (nobody will notice the change of era once they’ve downed yet another sherry). Perfect for evoking the spirit of Christmas, opting to hire a brass band for your Christmas party always goes down well.

Event ideas for award ceremonies

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Awards ceremonies can be stuffy affairs, especially for those who aren’t lucky enough to win on the evening. One sure fire way to make them enjoyable for everyone is to hire entertainment, sit back and watch as everyone has a great time downing the free drinks! But what sort of entertainment should you be booking for the event?

Circus Acts
Hiring circus entertainment for your awards bash is a hell of a way to get the party started on the night! The lights go down, there is a palpable sense of expectation! Hoops, LEDs, aerial silk artists swinging from the rafters…Circus entertainment is an amazing way to impress everybody which will not only ensure impressed coos from the audience but also a lot of sharing on social media!

Awards Host
You can’t exactly have an awards ceremony without a host can you? For the smaller companies and their awards evenings, this is often somebody from the company, perhaps the CEO making a couple of awkward jokes before making way for Barry from Accounts, a man whose humour doesn’t match his enthusiasm blundering through the evening. Once you’re more established though, you can book a presenter from the telly or an established comedian who will keep the laughs coming throughout the event.

Meet and Greet Acts
Arriving at an awards ceremony can be a daunting affair. If you’re particularly unlucky then you might well be going alone to the event and although happy to attend, it is a tad alarming to think you might be eating dinner with people you don’t know and could feasibly in for a quiet night; nobody likes starting conversation with strangers. If you book meet and greet acts for an awards ceremony though, this fear dissipates instantly. Guests will arrive and are instantly able to relax as they marvel at costumed characters or stilt walkers.

Finale/After Party
Who doesn’t like a good dance at the end of an event? The answer is of course ‘nobody’. If
there’s one thing sitting in chairs at dining tables for three or four hours makes you want to do, it’s getting to your feet and dancing the night away as soon as possible. The band who provided the award stings can play some songs whilst other entertainment is also just as well suited to such an evening! LED Canapé Girls are sure to impress whilst photo booths provide a unique opportunity for someone to show off their award with a humorous prop in tow.

Don’t forget the kids

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If you are organising a party or event and there are children present then here are a number of party entertainment ideas to ensure that if yours is a child-friendly day, that the kids are happy throughout the event to leave the adults to enjoy some adult time…

Petting Zoo
The best thing about hiring a petting zoo is that everybody can get involved and enjoy having animals at your wedding. Just like balloon modellers, this idea is perfect for guests both young and old. Children will be in their element as they pet the animals inside the enclosure and they may just be allowed to feed them as well!

Face Painting
A simple and traditional idea and one that always goes down brilliantly, face painting is a hugely popular affair at every event. Whether children would like to go for a tiger look or a butterfly, there are numerous options available to ensure that every single child is happy on your special day. With friendly face painters available all across London, we are confident you’ll be very happy with the results!

Balloon Modellers
There are a number of fun balloon modellers to hire that can entertain children in a variety of ways. Not just for children’s parties, these superb artists can make pretty much anything out of their very special balloons. Whether a child would like a dog or perhaps even a hat ‘made’ from Pineapple and other delights, our balloon modellers are more than up to the task. Unlike other children’s entertainment, you might just find your adult guests wanting to get involved as well!

Ventriloquism Museum

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We head over to the USA to take in a curious museum that you certainly won’t see on the streets of London. Dubbed as ‘The World’s Only Museum Dedicated to Ventriloquism’, Vent Haven in Kentucky is certainly a place that you won’t forget in a hurry.

How does one start a museum of ventriloquism? The answer of course is that you have to have a passion for the art and that was the case with William Shakespeare Berger, a businessman from Cincinnati and amateur ventriloquist. Having amassed a vast collection of memorabilia and merchandise related to ventriloquism throughout his life, he eventually set upon the idea of opening a museum in the heart of Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, just five miles from where he initially made his name.

Unfortunately for Shakespeare Berger, he died in the same year that Vent Haven opened – 1973 – but that hasn’t dampened the museum’s success with numerous photographs, posters and other merchandise being donated the premises over the last 45 years. Although these items undoubtedly improve the offering of Vent Haven, the real jewel in the crown is of course the 900+ retired ventriloquist dummies in their possession that have come from more than 20 countries around the world.

To a ventriloquist, Vent Haven is guaranteed to raise a smile but for those who find even one ventriloquist’s dummy a bit creepy, over 900 of them is sure to have them running for the door. Who knows upon which stages these dummies have been used? Or do you look at these specimens and only think of films like Annabelle, a horror movie about a family being terrorised by a vintage doll?

Whichever side on which you sit, one can’t deny that the museum is of great historical importance considering the various types of ventriloquist dummies on display. Although some wouldn’t be out of place on stage today, others are profoundly darker, harking back to a time when racism was commonplace and often ignored by the masses.

Ventriloquists will absolutely love a visit to Vent Haven and the best bit is that they even hold a convention each and every year, which is brilliantly stylised as the Vent Haven ConVENTion. Over 400 ventriloquists turn up to celebrate and we can only imagine the tales they must tell!

Scottish Rap

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When it comes to facts or interesting stories, this is a great one. How do you get taken seriously as a rapper in the music industry? The answer for two young men from Scotland was to pretend to be two American rappers from the West Coast. A brazen move, the lie was soon out of control but it makes for a great story…

Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd had met at college in Dundee and loved rap. They wanted to be the next big thing in the industry but due to their accents were derided by executives as ‘The Rapping Proclaimers’. Despite the fact their demos were good enough to earn them record company meetings, within 20 seconds of performing their first track live they were laughed at because ‘real’ rappers did not come from Scotland.

Heartbroken but undeterred, Bain and Boyd decided to fix their image and have another go. Within just a few weeks they were now going as Silibil N’ Brains (Boyd and Bain), two obnoxious rappers from Huntington Beach in California, who had met over a rap battle contest in San Francisco. Playing up their invented personas, the two men became monstrous, obscene and egotistical, which the industry absolutely loved, seeing them a new version of The Beastie Boys or memorably describing them as ‘”Two Eminems”.

They were quickly signed up by Jonathan Shalit, the man who had discovered Charlotte Church. From there they were signed to a record deal with Sony who negotiated for them to appear on channels like MTV, got them attending the BRIT Awards and had them supporting Eminem’s rap super group D12 on tour. The only problem with the plan was that Bain and Boyd had to keep up their act almost 24/7, lying to fans, fellow musicians and all of the business people they came into contact with.

Silibil N’ Brains managed to keep going for three years, a few times almost coming unstuck in their lie, most notably being when they saw Proof and the rest of D12 for the first time. Having previously bragged that they were friends of the rapper, and with all eyes on them, they went straight in for a hug when they saw him, explaining how great it was to see him again. Suitably confused and not wanting to be rude, Proof went along with everything because hey, maybe he had met them before?

As with any lie, the longer it went on the harder it was for the duo to maintain their deception. They absolutely hated the characters they had created, even if some in the industry thought they were the next big thing, and the understandable stress of being someone you aren’t each and every day began to take its toll. Incredibly even Bain’s Texan girlfriend never suspected a thing.

When Sony’s merger and subsequent job losses left them strung out to dry – with their first single being delayed by six months – Boyd decided to call it a day and return to his wife in Scotland, where he was expecting a child. Bain continued for a little while but also finally called it a day, revealing the hoax. That wasn’t the last of the rappers however; they reunited for The Great Hip Hop Hoax, a documentary of their story in 2013, and released an EP to celebrate the film titled Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Romeo and Juliet

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Yes, Shakespeare did write Romeo and Juliet. Of course he did! Most of us studied it at school and if you ever look at a list of Shakespeare plays, Romeo and Juliet is guaranteed to be listed under tragedies.

But fascinatingly he didn’t invent the characters. Many literary scholars cite Shakespeare as a bit of a plagiarist when it comes to his plays; allegedly it’s possible to work out what he was reading at the time he wrote each play with the only ‘true original’ being The Tempest! Even with this information, we didn’t know that he took the characters of Romeo and Juliet in quite so obvious a manner.

You see, some thirty plus years before William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, a narrative poem titled The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet was written by Arthur Brooke. Like any historic piece of writing there are numerous theories on where Brooke got his idea with a few believing that he translated it from an Italian novella by Matteo Bandello and others thinking that he translated it from a French translation of Bandello’s work which features characters named Reomeo Titensus and Juliet Bibleotet.

Not much is known of Arthur Brooke – he died in a shipwreck just a year after publishing his most famous work – but it seems highly likely that William Shakespeare used The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet as his inspiration when writing Romeo and Juliet, primarily because the plot of the poem follows the play to the letter (minus the ending).

As Wikipedia states, ‘The poem’s ending differs significantly from Shakespeare’s play—the nurse is banished and the apothecary is hanged for their involvement in the deception, while Friar Lawrence leaves Verona to end his days in a hermitage.’

So if you ever sit there wondering to yourself why you can’t come up with stories as good as Shakespeare, simply pick up a book by Stephen King, J.K. Rowling or some other successful author and plagiarise it for the stage. We wish you the very best of luck. You never know, school children might learn it 500 years from now!

Wreck-It Ralph

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If you are thinking of holding a Wreck-It Ralph party. Have no fear for we are here to help!

Circus Strongman
Perhaps the most obvious party entertainment booking for a Wreck-It Ralph theme is the booking of a strong man. Wreck-It Ralph is famed for his strength – in fact it’s essentially his one big character trait in the first film – so why not book a real life strongman for your event? From bending metal bars to breaking blocks, you are sure to be impressed!

Joypad
Another no brainer when it comes to booking acts for a Wreck-It Ralph party – he is a video game character after all – Joypad video game hire is all about booking retro games to play at your event. From the Atari 2600 to the SNES, Sega and beyond, we guarantee that guests will be constantly coming back for more. Why obsess over the latest technology when there is so much fun to be had with 8-bit and 16-bit games? Whisper it, you may even be able to book the 64-bit N64!

Mash Machine
If you want to combine technology with fun, the Mash Machine is a must. Essentially a music creation station, guests move pieces onto the machine to create their own tune. The best bit? You can use whatever you like to work with the machine and even download your music afterwards. Why not have the characters from the film moving about a top the machine!?

Sweet Caterers
Fans of the first film may remember that a big part of the movie is the video game Sugar Rush, which features an edible landscape for all to enjoy. Thankfully there are numerous acts that can provide edible treats and even though Willy Wonka doesn’t exist, this is the next best thing! Tasty air emanates from these magical edible mist orbs and there are also options for chocolate fountains, chocolate taps, popcorn in any flavour and much more!

Costumed Characters
Last but not least, it’s the most obvious Wreck-It Ralph booking of the lot; Costumed Characters. Whether you’d like to book Wreck-It Ralph, Fix-It Felix, Jr or Vanellope von Schweetz, it’s all possible. Why not go the extra mile with some more theme ideas including wall murals and more?
We hope this gives you some idea of what you can achieve with a Wreck-It Ralph themed party and we hope you enjoy the new film!

History of Clairvoyants

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Records of people experiencing visions go back at least as far as The Bible, when Peter, James and John “saw” a kingdom of God coming to the earth.

The ability to see things with the mind was for many centuries given religious significance, chiefly as messages from God, although clairvoyance has never been solely a Christian phenomenon.

Ancient Hindu religious texts speak of a skill that can be accomplished through personal discipline and meditation.

Apart from the religious aspect, one of the most common reports of clairvoyance is of a loved one appearing just after they have died.

For centuries, clairvoyants learned to keep their experiences quiet for fear of being condemned as a witch and it was only towards the end of the 18th century that the phenomenon was explored scientifically.

The Marquis de Puysegur took inspiration from Franz Mesmer – who theorised that there were forces of energy called animal magnetism. He recorded the personality changes of a peasant he was treating, while he was in a trance, and was reportedly the first to use the term “clairvoyance”.

During the rise in popularity of spiritualists in the late 19th century, many psychics claimed to have the ability to see with the mind.

Early scientific attempts to test the ability, by the likes of chemist Williams Gregory, saw participants asked to identify a concealed image.

It was Duke university psychologist J.B. Rhine who introduced a more standard method of testing, as part of research into extrasensory perception in the early 1930s.

He used a system developed by Karl Zener, where people who claimed to have clairvoyant gifts were asked to identify which one of five cards depicting different symbols had been picked by the tester.

Rhine published a book, Extrasensory Perception, in 1934 detailing his research, which had included a study of Hubert Pearce. With five cards, a subject has a 20 per cent chance of success but Pearce’s average was 40 per cent.

More recently, the Stanford Research Institute coined the term remote viewing and carried out studies into whether people could identify and describe remote locations or targets.

The researchers, Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, believed that Uri Geller had psychic abilities and Geller’s skills were showcased on many TV programs. In the past few decades, thousands of experiments have been carried out to test clairvoyance. One study in 1994 recorded a 32 per cent accurate response rate, compared to a chance rate of 25 per cent.

The U.S. government funded a project over more than 20 years to investigate whether clairvoyance could be used to acquire knowledge of enemy operations.

History of a Jester

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Mention a court jester, and one pictures a whimsical creature in a belled hat or, perhaps, the ill-fated character in King Lear. Otto’s lively, well-researched text proves that there are centuries of other examples and that the jester has a rich tradition worldwide.

The jester is an elusive character. The European words used to denote him can now seem as nebulous as they are numerous, reflecting the mercurial man behind them: fool, buffoon, clown, jongleur, jogleor, joculator, sot, stultor, scurra, fou, fol, truhan, mimus, histrio, morio. He can be any of these, while the German word Narr is not so much a stem as the sturdy trunk of a tree efflorescent with fool vocabulary. The jester’s quicksilver qualities are equally difficult to pin down, but nevertheless not beyond definition.

The Chinese terms used for “jester” now seem vaguer than the European, most of them having a wider meaning of “actor” or “entertainer.” In Chinese there is no direct translation of the English “jester,” no single word that to the present-day Chinese conjures an image as vividly as “court jester,” fou du roi, or Hofnarr would to a Westerner.

An individual court jester in Europe could emerge from a wide range of backgrounds: an erudite but nonconformist university dropout, a monk thrown out of a priory for nun frolics, a jongleur with exceptional verbal or physical dexterity, or the apprentice of a village blacksmith whose fooling amused a passing nobleman.

Just as a modern-day television stand-up comedian might begin his career on the pub and club circuit, so a would-be jester could make it big time in court if he was lucky enough to be spotted. In addition, a poet, musician, or scholar could also become a court jester.