New Chichester fun club for "sassy seniors"

As she says, she sat back and took stock of the progress of her Vintage Supper Club – and has now rebranded and relaunched it with a bit of a new twist as the Dickie Bows & Petticoats Club, a new low-cost cabaret lunchtime club. It launches on January 30 with tickets only a tenner, Dawn says.

More details are available at https://www.dawnsvintagedo.com/dickiebowsandpetticoatsclub.

It is aimed at those “who seem to share my enthusiasm for delivering cheeky entertainment but who might not want to come to the full-on evening events.”

Taking place in the Pallant Suite, it will be “£10 per person for two hours of fun, food and friends in the heart of the city of Chichester.

“The idea behind it is that it is a daytime club and it will be sassy and aimed seniors but that's actually something that's quite hard to define. You tend to think of retirement age being 65 and up but actually 65 is not that senior... the closer I get to it! So maybe it's people that are 75-plus but absolutely people who are younger can come along.

"The original idea was to combat isolation and loneliness in the elderly, but actually the elderly is not a word that I like.

"I see it as queenagers. The queen was a queenager, wasn’t she! She was amazing right to the end so this is something definitely for the older generation, the people I've worked with for for many, many years but combining my vintage guise and my vaudeville and cabaret and it's very much aimed at an age group that I feel completely passionate about. So really I would say that it is perhaps 70 and up, but if someone who is 65 plus wants to be part of it, then that is also great. It's the people that might feel that they don't have family or a friends network but would enjoy the entertainment; for certain people for whom getting out in the evening is going to be tricky particularly if they are living with dementia, and absolutely we welcome people who are living with dementia. I've been working with people living with dementia for a long time and the volunteers I will get will be trained to be dementia friendly so everyone can be included.

“I launched the Vintage Supper Club a few years ago and I launched it from 5-8pm and that was great with vintage singing and vintage entertainment but it still felt like it was missing something especially with it happening at a time of day when the A27 was at its worst. I decided to change the time and up the ante for the entertainment.

"The entertainment is going to be clean but cheeky and sassy in the best possible taste. It will be specially selected cabaret artists to include burlesque and drag and circus and comedy.

"Obviously for my cabaret club you have to be broad minded and I say that it's not for the faint hearted but this will be definitely for the faint hearted though perhaps for people who are open to being more broad minded as well, if you see what I mean. The idea is to have a fantastic time, be with friends, enjoy lovely entertainment and perhaps enjoy something they've missed out on in their past.”