Some excellent and talented dancers who didn’t get enough time to shine or show what they could do amid a slightly disjointed array of cabaret.
An Evening of Burlesque – the UK’s longest running burlesque show, is on an almighty tour of the country and for one night only at The Adelphi, we were promised the ultimate variety show, blending stylish cabaret, comedy, music, circus and burlesque to light up all your senses.
There were many wonderful aspects of the evening. Ivy Paige was our MC for the evening, keeping the audience appropriately entertained, teased and interested as the next acts were lining up in the wings. She was funny and let us all know our role in the evening – cheer, holler and whoop and clothes would be taken off.
The evening featured several strip teases by some talented burlesque performers. Velvet Jones, Isabella Bliss and Bell de Beauvoir were supported by the wonderful La Sheila Showgirls in som classic routines including fan acts and a rotating cocktail glass finale. My favourites were the unusual and original reverse strip tease by the fabulous Velvet Jones and the treat of some boylesque by Sebastian Angelique.
But that is where the originality stopped. We have all seen the cocktail glass and fans before and, for me, when attending an evening of burlesque, I am hoping for something a bit new and innovative.
The other real shame was that, while the cabaret acts of the talented tap dancing and all-round entertainer, Saucy Davies Jr, comedy magic by BGT’s Christian Lee and Matt Pangs straight jacket escape atop a unicycle, were fun, again, they were not terribly original and took up far more time than the burlesque routines. Often, as a result, despite it being a pretty long show overall, the girls’ routines felt rushed.
All in all, it was fun, but the audience did seem to start at boiling point and simmer down as the night went on. For me, it felt slightly more like an Elevenses of Burlesque than a full evening.
An Evening of Burlesque is on tour until 16th December. For more information, go to their website
Creative director: Lucinda Ryan
Choreography: Jordan grigg:
Lighting design: Tye Connolly
Playhouse Pickings 