19 December 2006
A class(y) evening....
Mark Shenton: The Stage"Whatever happened to class?", wonders Mama Morton in Chicago,
and goes on to lament, ?Now no one even says oops/when they're passing
their gas?. She's, of course, referring solely to matters of social
etiquette, rather than the (not so) niceties of social division that
are still perpetuated in Britain where your accent, dress, education
and behavioural reflexes can all still be used in evidence against you.
And last night, the new show from the Olivier Award winning Duckie
troupe put a delicious (in every sense) new spin on these notions,
providing a dazzling and unique piece of "immersive" event theatre in
which the audience chooses (according to price) which of three social
groups to join, and are served food and entertainment appropriate to
their choice of lower, middle or upper class.
The evening is called The Class Club, and you're encouraged
to move up, or down, a peg or two - "to strut it or slum it", in the
words of the publicity - and asked to dress for the occasion you've
selected. Last was press night, and even the critics were asked to join
in. Since I elected to go Upper Class, I dragged my dinner suit out of
its mothballs (though I couldn't go the whole way since I didn't have a
bow tie, but I had a freshly laundered white shirt, at least); somehow,
I had two pairs of DJ trousers, and could still fit into one! When I
arrived at the Barbican, the lovely in-house PR Angela Dias immediately
exclaimed that she'd lost her bet: she was sure that the critics
wouldn't rise to the challenge of dressing the part. Some simply took
the easy option and came as they were - i.e. middle class. For the
Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish, the Guardian's Lyn Gardner, and Time
Out's Rachel Halliburton, no change of clothes were therefore
necessary.
But those in the upper and lower orders tried a bit harder. The
Independent on Sunday's Kate Bassett won the critics' prize for the
best get-up: she came tottering in on high heels (quickly installed in
the ladies' loo, and removed there afterwards before going home), tight
top, and powder-pink baseball cap for a brilliant chav look. The
Evening Standard's Fiona Mountford, meanwhile, went the other way,
dressing up in an elegant black dress that I both ungallantly and
indelicately suggested could have gone either way: she was either upper
class, or a working-class tart with aspirations. She was too classy to
hit me, so she was obviously upper class! And Benedict Nightingale of
The Times - who usually sports a crumpled and/or stained suit - dragged
out his best winter suit, while The Observer's Susannah Clapp was
beautifully attired in what looked like a vintage dress.
The audience are duly ushered into one of three separate, privately
curtained-off areas for a Christmas dinner - silver service waiters
serving a salmon starter, then pheasant, sprouts and mash for the main
course, topped off by Christmas pudding and cheese and biscuits for the
upper class (£40); an organic menu for the middle-class (£25); and
carvery for the lower-class (£14.99). The entertainment in each area is
also bespoke - the waiters become operatic divas in upper class, while
there's a heavily shoulder-padded club singer, a drunken Father
Christmas, and a boy rapper in working class. You get a sense of what's
happening in the other rooms from the soundscape that spills over
between each area, giving you that irresistible sense of a great party
literally happening somewhere else that's tantalisingly just out of
out-of-reach. A curtain is drawn back briefly between the elegant,
chandeliered area of the long upper class dining area and the neon
strip-lit working class area as the latter go to collect their food,
and as they peer through the plastic glass between us, we're suddenly
in a goldfish bowl. And then gradually, as the curtains are drawn back,
the three worlds collide - and the waiting staff (who also provide the
entertainment in their own areas) spill into each other?s areas to see
how they other half live.
I'm actually going to watch it from each of the other two points of
view, too - I have booked (and paid!) to see it again in middle-class
later this week, and lower-class in the New Year. Speaking to
colleagues afterwards who had been in the other classes, I discovered
that, far from being in their own comfort zone in the middle-class,
this sounded like the most intimidating of all the areas. The working
class seemed the most fun.
Duckie's shows certainly repay revisiting. I loved their last Barbican show so much - C?est Barbican!,
presented in 2003 and 2004 - that I went several times. It was a
burlesque that wasn't just unique every night, but unique to every
table in the room: you ordered acts off a menu that were then performed
at your table, as available. As well as a core group of performers,
special guests were invited to add to the mix, and one night, an act
that rejoices in the name of Boogaloo Stu was there. I got my table to
agree to invite him to perform one of his acts "Boogaloo Stu Wanks for
You" for us. It was exactly what it said on the label - he produced a
giant dildo, covered the table in plastic sheeting, and proceeded to
spray the table at the, er, climax of his act. When Duckie won the
Olivier, I remember telling some incredulous industry-folk about this
act, and I could tell no one quite believed me.
There's nothing quite so shocking here. But this is a one-of-a-kind
evening all the same: as Lady Mountford said to me, if only every night
at the theatre could be like this. After all the pantos she has been
enduring for the Standard, this must have come as a welcome adult
alternative. |
