IN CAMILLE'S HEELS

“I’M A big scaredy-cat,” Camille O’Sullivan declares, explaining how she first turned to singing.

Not how one might describe a woman who abandoned a safe career in architecture after a serious car accident to pursue a not so stable life as a singer.
But that’s how the Irish French singer sees herself.
Audiences who witness Camille’s stage antics –being electrocuted and burned after wrapping Christmas lights around herself, stumbling over speakers and landing on glass, teetering on the edge of tables in heels – might disagree.


The Irish-French singer may loosely inhabit the cabaret genre but to confine her to that term would do her a disservice.
She uses her wild, dark, storytelling streak, to interpret the likes of Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Jacques Brel and Arcade Fire by becoming their most vivid characters.

Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody recently wrote a song for her and she’s performed with Shane MacGowan, Tim Robbins and Damien Rice.
Camille is holding a charity Q & A at the Shaw Theatre in aid of Mayor of Camden Jonathan Simpson’s chosen charity the Roundhouse Trust (March 3).

But she fears the idea may suggest she’s an “egomaniac”, saying: “As long as people know I’m not going (affects luvvie voice) “I’ve so many things to tell the theatre” – that would horrify me”. I always hoped someone could’ve guided me and I’m happy to share my experience in what is quite a closed, unstable profession. I still think I’m on that journey, it’s not authority, I spend my time worrying about the next gig.”

Camille loved singing from an early age but it wasn’t until she went to Berlin that she realised she wanted to emulate the types of characters personified in Brecht and Eisler songs.
She said: “It’s good to have good fun but it’s also nice to go to a dark place to make people have a bit of black humour....You’ve got to have a certain amount of obsession to keep singing people’s songs that aren’t your own.”

As an architect, Camille flirted with the idea of becoming a professional singer but it was a terrible accident, which changed her life: “I was on morphine and euphoric to be alive. I was like what are you doing? This is your life. I don’t want to be 80 and look back and think I didn’t try. It took a year to use my hands, walk again and hand in my notice. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing... I placed every obstacle because I was blooming nervous and not confident. I’m a big scaredy cat.”

Her days are a whirlwind of tours and Camille avoids hotels as she drags her life around.
She recently shared a flat in Soho with the rubber man (who can put his body through tennis rackets) and is currently staying in a cottage in Stratford, while working with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She said: “I’m looking at my suitcases because I’m horrified by them. I want globetrotter luggage but I know it’d cost too much. It’s my dream that I would actually look like a cool traveller when I’m going places instead of the wheel that’s falling off the suitcase today.”

Essential items include red lipstick and perfume she said, adding: “I have to get all my costumes in first, then I might bring a candle or a toy from home, a little bear or something. It may sound ridiculous but a friend gave me a little rabbit it’s just a little thing you put on the bed so you start making the place look like it’s yours.”

She added: “I do a lot of my tax and thinking up ideas – they end up on pieces of paper – so I bring a big plastic bag of that to put on my computer. It’s trying to make sense of my life. You know when you’re at home and chaos is in your house, I just take portions of it away with me so I can solve myself when I’m gone.”

FIND THE FLOWERPOT AND YOU WON'T WANT TO LEAVE

IT LOOKS like the dream student living room – couches and lamps, arcade machines with space invaders, table football, and a bar on one wall.
But how many students get to play host to Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, Reverend and the Makers and The Drums?

In the 18 months The Flowerpot's been in Kentish Town, it’s become the unofficial social club for Camden musicians, creating a niche for itself quite possibly unrivalled in London – a respected bill of new and established acts every night totally free.

Although it’s known to those who know, in some ways it’s Camden’s best kept secret, just enough off the beaten track to avoid the paparazzi attention given to Proud and The Hawley Arms, yet with the pulling power to attract Madness, Jamie T and Florence and the Machine. 

You get the sense they want to keep it that way. 

The website is as low-key as it gets and getting manager and promoter Jay Sensible to gossip about the acts is tough.

“I’m not really a namedropper,” he said. “It’s more about looking after bands than promoters.”
Even so, Eliza Doolittle’s has told us she likes to hang out there, Kate Nash has spun records on a Saturday night and Damien Rice has dropped by for a quick jam.

Born from the disaster that was the great fire of Nambucca, bar staff, musicians and the remnants of those who lived over the fashionable Holloway Road pub clubbed together and moved into Camden.
Jay said: “People were homeless and jobless. We rooted around and got hold of the club.”
The staff live above the bar and do much more than serve drinks.
Jay said: “Seven of us live there. We DJ, book bands and promote it. We’ve a wicked back line, we provide guitars, drum kits and amps so bands can just turn up.”

Their listings boast an ambitious line-up from the newest talent to surprise appearances, after-show gigs and established acts – and the punters never have to pay for the privilege.
Most of the staff are in bands or have had some involvement with the music industry and it is these connections that form the heart and soul of the venue – and explain how they scoop the big names.

Jay said: “If you do nice things, nice things happen. We try and help out other bands by putting things on for free. All of us have worked with bands in the past and say we put on early gigs when they were small, now they’re selling records and doing better, they come back and repay the favour.”
He added: “We didn’t want to be a standard music venue. People trust that we’re going to put good bands on. We try and make it as welcoming as possible. Because the bar staff all know each other it’s got a kind of community atmosphere. Our crowd are young, fun, arty...and drunk. They like Jaegerbombs.”

Recently Mumford and Sons, Kill it Kid, The Joker and the Thief and others transformed the venue into a studio for a week-long project writing and recording tracks from start to finish, for a Communion Records compilation. Singer Damien Rice turned up to jam with them at one point.
Jay said: “The whole thing will to be put on vinyl and released in autumn. People had to write the songs here, it was all pretty off the wall. We’ve definitely got some exciting things coming up and New Year at HMV The Forum again with some big bands.”

• US indie girl band The Like play a pre Reading and Leeds Festival warm-up gig at The Flowerpot next week (Wednesday).