If it's Frozen sung by felines, it must be Cool for Cats...



Yes, not only can Amelie dance, she can sing as well. In showbusiness circles, she's what's known as a triple threat. The third threat being violence.

On the downside, our enthusiasm for getting her out of the house (and away from us) as much as possible means that I'm spending most of my life ferrying her around to various clubs, activities and events. Last weekend's dance show was the culmination of a few Tuesday evening classes, but this weekend involved four trips to Hove for her final Musical Theatre class on Saturday, and then rehearsals and end-of-term show on Sunday. So it's all very well for the boy on the left to start yawning at the mention of all their hard work, but frankly it's the parents who are knackered.

This particular revue involved her dressing as a cat and dancing to 'Macavity: The Mystery Cat', which is a song about cats from a cat-based musical. I think it's Starlight Express. That was followed by an acting performance from two pairs of older children who, we were told, have just passed their LAMDA exams. I expected them to come on and do some Latin-American dancing, but as it transpired, it was the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art that's been testing them, not the Lambada.

Both pairs were very good, although I struggled to follow the plot of both their audition pieces. There seemed to be a fair amount of murder involved, which is probably quite appropriate as Joint Enterprise is in the news a lot at the moment, but exactly who was planning to kill who, and why, was slightly beyond me.

Fortunately, Amelie soon returned to the stage to dumb things down to my level with a traditional folk song about flowers, and a rendition of 'Let It Go' from Frozen. Frankly she could sing that song word-perfectly with no rehearsal whatsoever, but ever-critical of her own performance, she told me afterwards that she'd come in too late with the foot-stomps at 2:28 and 3:30. Which is ironic as she'll usually stamp her feet at the drop of a hat. Particularly if it's someone else who's touched her hat without asking.

Anyhoo, the show was a triumph (obviously) and I've got some good footage to sell to the makers of 'Before They Were Famous' in a few years time. So buoyed by our daughter's success in both music and dancing, we were pleased to hear yesterday morning that her school is running an after-school club in the autumn called 'Rising Stars'. We knew nothing about it, but the name conjured up images of showbiz and the performing arts, so we took it to be some kind of stage school activity, and promptly signed her up.

We found out today that it's a sports club. And it's on the same day as her swimming lessons. We might need to work on her stamina over the summer.