Author: Michael Hootman

The acts in this cavalcade of burlesque come fast and furious: one moment a slimmed-down Divine lookalike and a bevy (I think that’s the right collective noun) of muscle boys are fan dancing to INXS, the next Evil Monkey Man is in your very lap thrusting his nether regions towards your poor, innocent face (memo to self: next time I go to see them, don’t sit in the front row). It’s as much fun as any show I’ve seen in years – they say they’re planning to visit Brighton in the near future so I’d warmly advise readers  to pester them to make good on their promise.

Described by its compere as ‘a little bit of butch with a fuck load of camp on the side‘ the Australian troupe serve up a feast of incredible acrobatics, balancing acts, eye-dazzling costumes and a naughty schoolboy being slightly inappropriate with a banana. It’s all sweet-natured fun with even the drag compere being sharp-tongued without having a shred of cruelty. Some acts provoke gasps of amazement at feats of contortion, while others are hard not to admire for their sweetly innocent smut. Though it does have one gag – and reader, I nearly did – which might be a bad-taste special effect too far. By way of explanation we’re informed that ‘one traumatising experience is included in the ticket price’.

Too many highlights to list but I particularly liked a demented Nana Mouskouri, a man cavorting athletically in a birdbath, and yes, the handsome naughty schoolboy (though if the police are reading this, I liked it purely for the right reasons).

For more information, and to send a pestering email, click here.

This is a magical production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical set in a fairytale world in which we see familiar characters but in an unfamiliar light. Red Riding Hood is on the brink of discovering her sexuality – with a little help from a certain Mr Wolf; Jack betray’s the giant’s hospitality and later shows that he is also quite keen on violent revenge; and Ms Hood’s granny, far from being a benign old woman, is a chillingly gleeful vivisectionist.

The show has some of its composer’s best songs, is beautifully acted by the cast, boasts an amazing set which puts the audience in the very heart of its enchanted forest, and is vibrantly costumed – in short it will please the most demanding of Sondheimites and probably make a few converts to the cause.

The first thing we hear is Churchill’s declaration of war on Germany and the action unfolds through the eyes of a small child in England during the late ’30s. The first act doesn’t stray too far from the traditional narrative path: Jack (Conor Baum) is told by his mother (Lucy Pickering) to sell their cow which he does for some magical beans. The wolf eats granny and has eyes on an equally ravenous – though more for baked goods than flesh – Red Riding Hood.

Cinderalla has two morally ugly sisters (Hayley Cann and Kathryn Pickering) and has a prince for a boyfriend who doesn’t know her true identity. There’s the addition of a childless couple who have to get various items that the other characters own in order to end the curse of a witch (Nikki Gerrard). It has a happy ending with everyone getting what they want or deserve. In act two we learn the truth of the adage be careful what you wish for.

Emma Edwards’ direction emphasises that this is a musical about the relationship between parents and children. I was a little nonplussed by the wartime setting but it certainly pays off at the evening’s end with an image that had me fighting very hard to hold back tears. Then Gerrard beautifully sings Children Will Listen – which movingly sums up the responsibilities and dangers of parenthood – and I kind of lost the battle.

Baum is a winningly expressive Jack and certainly delivers on his rousing big number, Giants in the Sky. Pickering seems to be channelling Thora Hird at her no-nonsense-Northerner best as Jack’s mother. Duncan Drury is great fun as a spiv Mr Wolf and Emilia Tzilios has a wonderful comic verve portraying a young girl who’s more than a match for her big-toothed nemesis.

Continues at the Emporium, London Road, Brighton until July 27.

For more information and tickets click here.

Joe Orton’s play of sex, intrigue and murder amongst the lower middle-class is now fifty years old. Not surprisingly it’s lost some, perhaps most, of its power to shock and is now a respectable classic of English theatre. But of course shock will get you only so far – will its cast of scheming, hypocritical, and manipulative characters still have the same fascination it had in 1964? The Emporium Rep’s production is a decent stab at Sloane but never quite makes the grade.

A young man with a dubious past finds himself lodging in a house built on a rubbish dump presided over by Kath (Bridget Mastrocola), who is a traditional lusty landlady. She lives with her elderly father Kemp (Rory McCallum) who hasn’t spoken to his son Ed (Mike Goodenough) for twenty years after catching him in some unspecified act of immorality – though after Ed hires Sloane to be his chauffeur on the condition the uniform includes leather trousers we can make an educated guess.

Sloane is harder to perform than reading the play would suggest. This production – like many others – can see very good lines simply lost through the timing being a beat out, or getting the rhythm slightly wrong. After her father stabs Sloane with a toasting fork Kath asks ‘Did he attack you? He’s never shown signs before‘ which is a great line with its vaguely surreal suggestion that old people, like dogs, may suddenly turn. But here it doesn’t get a laugh or even raise a smile. Though I also feel that the press night was a bit too early in the run as there were quite a few missed cues and the occasional fluffed line. Hopefully, after a few more performances, it will get the delivery it deserves.

Goodenough is excellent as the repressed East End queer who wouldn’t be out of place amongst the gay hoodlums of Performance. He’s domineering and menacing but also shows a wickedly funny side. The scene where he quizzes Sloane about growing up in an all-boys orphanage with a barely concealed lubriciousness is an absolute joy. Mastrocola gives Kath some depth, making her pitiable as well as a willing exploiter of the young man who she will end up sharing with her brother as if Sloane were the spoils of some domestic war. McCallum makes a wonderfully irascible, crotchety and generally unlovable old man. Unfortunately, I really didn’t get on with Drury’s Sloane. Certainly not a bad performance but it didn’t have nearly the power, the sense of swagger, that the role demands.

If you haven’t seen Sloane before this is a very good introduction; and when it hits its stride it is very funny. If it’s a play you’re familiar with you may end up just a tad disappointed at its missed opportunities.

Continues at the Emporium, London Road, Brighton until June 22.

For more information and tickets click here.