Wilkommen
bienvenue, welcome. Following last year's hit run, the Barbican's
basement space has been transformed again into a decadent nighterie,
courtesy of Duckie's loose collection of performance artistes, hoofers
and comedians. Anyone for postmodern lapdancing? It is camp, trashy and
wonderful. Weimar Berlin via the Vauxhall Tavern.
This is a
totally interactive theatrical experience, from the kind of gushingly
perfect waiters who do not exist in reality to the fake Duckie Dollars
with which you book your table's acts. The menu's choices range from
Golden Throat to Miss Kick Does Seven Cocks, which turned out to be the
kind of balloonmodelling children's entertainers never do. It is adult
but neither erotic nor pornographic, more playfully suggestive.
The
main cast, Ursula Martinez, Christopher Green, Kazuko Hohki and Miss
High Leg Kick, all have separate careers in their own right. Green is
also stand-up Tina C, while Hohki was a founder of the commitedly
quirky Frank Chickens. They certainly graft for their bogus bankrolls
here, circling the tables and turning artful tricks in their
fleshcoloured body stockings.
But beware. Our party foolishly
ordered a platter of sensible titbits and had to force out smiles at
Martinez's Wicked Witch of the West delivered in Spanish and a
nanosecond-long hoof from the self-styled Miss Kick, while others were
enjoying the riotously priapic antics of bequiffed special guest Stu
Boogaloo or being serenaded under umbrellas by Hohki.
We looked
on enviously at Natcho Snatcho on a nearby table, rather like Woody
Allen gloomily eyeing the revellers on the neighbouring train in
Stardust Memories. By the time our Office Party request reached us we
had glimpsed it so many times the thrill of a singalong and funny hats
had faded.
Choose wisely and the evening, co-devised by
trailblazing genre-bender Marisa Carnesky, is a unique spectacle,
irreverently trampling over disciplines from dance to burlesque.
After
winning the moral high ground when Christopher Green writhed for us
while reciting excerpts fromJoyce's Ulysses, a cod-sentimental
snowballing finale raised smiles all round. C'est Barbican! is a hoot,
even better if you leave your inhibitions in the cloakroom.
Duckie's Christopher Green is also stand-up Tina C
