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Flamboyant hairdresser Stephen Grant Herschel came a cropper when he stepped out on stage in a striking brunette wig wearing a blue taffeta evening gown and six-inch high stilettos during a charity fund-raising fashion show, writes STAN SZECOWKA.
The Vidal Sassoon-trained stylist had helped organise the sell-out event at the Bapco Club in Awali in aid of the BSPCA animal shelter on Thursday night when his carefully choreographed routine turned into a catastrophe.
Crash! He spun out of control as he gave publishing tycoon George Middleton several whacks around the head with a handbag as he mimed the 70s' Yvonne Fair hit It should have been me a heart-strung ditty about a girl watching another marry her sweetheart.
Bang! He slipped as he twirled at the end of the catwalk narrowly missing the stage lights.
Wallop! He somersaulted off the stage as he attempted to bow to an appreciative audience who thought his escapades were part of a well-worked comic routine.
"It only really hurt when I went head-over-heels at the end," explained Stephen, 40, a Zimbabwean who has been based in Bahrain for 14 years and lives in Mahooz.
The crimper was carted off to Awali hospital in excruciating pain before being transferred to Ibn Al Nafees Hospital where a surgeon had to be summoned to place 14 stitches in his torn leg. The following day his other leg was so swollen he needed a trip to Salmaniya Medical Complex where a twisted ankle and torn tendons were diagnosed and his leg was put in a cast. "Ouch! I won't be dressing up like that again for a long time," Stephen said.
Compere Krazy Kevin described the hairdresser as 'emotionally overwhelmed' at the time of the incident and Mr Middleton, managing director of Red House Marketing, brushed off his sudden encounter with the six-foot tall shapely assailant, saying: "It's not the sort of thing that happens every evening but fortunately the implement he used to bludgeon me was well padded."
