Cabaret Duo Years (c.1966–1970)

Before Jester Minute and Ye Olde Chastity Belt, Aubrey and Beryl Ellis worked the nightclub and cabaret circuit as a singing duo — Beryl performing under her stage name, Beryl Ellin. Their earliest documented booking places them at Bretts nightspot in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in what a contemporary review called “only their second cabaret engagement,” following a route that had taken them through Johannesburg’s coffee bars and the Mayfair in Durban. That same review credits Aubrey with the tenor lead in Minstrel Scandals, which toured South Africa for a year, and notes Beryl’s earlier work in the folk group the Folk Five (with Ian Lawrence, Des and Dawn Lindbergh) and stage credits in Oliver!, The Sound of Music, and Oklahoma!

By 1968 the duo had a regular booking at The Mark, reviewed twice in the local press for a 45-minute set of harmonised medleys — one review noting their sly, self-aware performance of the old folk song “Chastity Belt,” years before the venue of that name existed. In 1970 they appeared at the Crazy Horse Saloon (Beach Hotel), reviewed in both the Natal Mercury and the Sunday Tribune within a week of each other, with the Mercury’s critic offering a detailed technical note on Aubrey’s voice — “tenore leggiero or contraltino,” capable of an F above top C without slipping into falsetto. That same year they performed at the South African Folk Music Association’s benefit concert at Selborne Hall, sharing a bill with David Marks — the first documentary link placing Aubrey and Beryl alongside Marks, independent of the undocumented Troubadour/Chastity Belt connection.