THEATRE REVIEW: An Evening Of Burlesque - The Adelphi Theatre, London.

'An Evening Of Burlesque' is an exciting long running touring show, coming to a theatre near you soon. As part of its current UK tour, it is playing at the Adelphi in the Strand in London for the next few nights. It is filling in some available dates in October while ‘Back To The Future’ has a few weeks rest. This is an extravaganza of real cabaret acts mixed with some raunchy burlesque. It is very risqué and sexy, but at the same time tasteful. Obviously, if a bit of nudity is not your cup of tea, then this may not be for you. There was a very mixed crowd in the audience of different ages, all there to have a good time.

 

This show has lots of variety of acts and is a true cabaret experience with singing, dancing, burlesque all interspersed with circus type acts such as fire breathing and unicycling. This show is a whirlwind of sparkling costume changes and/or a lack of costumes! Costumes with feathers, sequins, tassels everywhere. Our compere for the evening was Ivy Paige, chanteuse, and all-round entertainer, she got the audience involved right from the start. Ivy is usually accompanied onstage by the scintillating and suggestive Lashielas show girls. The Lasheilas are four very gorgeous and curvaceous dancing girls wearing the bare minimum of sparkles. They make several appearances throughout the night, on their own or with the other acts. The show has three amazing women as the stars; the effervescent Isabella Bliss who also doubles as a Marilyn Monroe, with a stunning body and the wonderful Belle de Beauvoir, both delivering dazzling performances in little more than a flick of a tassel. It makes drinking champagne take on a different meaning altogether. Velvet Jones, I think is definitely more of a Velvet Goldmine, and when you see the booty rumble before your eyes you expect the gold to explode. Boy, did she know how to shake it!

 

The Burlesque stars continued the time-aged tradition of the slow sensual removal of long gloves (even by the men!). Yes, we had Sylvester Angelique taking his clothes off too. Sylvester also doubled as the fire-breathing circus act in Part two, accompanied by one of my favourite tracks – 'Fire', by Kasabian. Christian Lee was our magician, you may recognise the name as he has appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, he was very funny. Christian is now touring with 'An Evening Of Burlesque', and the ensemble work well together. Matt Pang was really amusing as the general stage dogsbody and unicyclist, and I must not forget to mention Saucy Davis Junior the Las Vegas singer and tap dancer. He is the epitome of cool and hilarious with it. He got a big applause at the end.

 

There is plenty of audience participation throughout. The audience is encouraged to whoop and cheer to show their appreciation of the acts with full on cat-calling to get our stars to remove individual items of clothing. If you go along to one of the performances and are sitting near the front be prepared, as you could be on the stage. Many members of the audience had dressed in sparkles to fully immerse themselves in the experience.

 

Ivy Paige belted out a few favourites such as 'Fever', 'Big Spender', and 'Tainted Love'. Other tracks played were 'Fire' by Kasabian (which is always on my playlists), Annie Lennox and a cover version of Kate Bush’s 'Running Up That Hill', to name but a few.

 

It was lovely to see some of the burlesque acts out front in the foyer greeting the audience as they arrived through the doors at the Adelphi and were more than willing to have their photos taken. I enjoyed the second part much better than the first and felt that the show was not quite a big enough production for a West End Theatre such as the Adelphi. I can see it doing fantastically as it tours round the local theatres, where even more enthusiasm can be mustered by the ‘out of towners.’

Reviewer - Penny Curran
on - 10.10.23