What a Hurly burly Time

Last Tuesday evening a friend and I took a trip up to London to our first "official" burlesque show, I have always seen little snippets of some burlesque shows at weekenders such as Hemsby and the Rhythm Riot however never stuck around to see the whole shbang generally because I always thought that five minutes of  boobs is enough for me, but I was in need of a night out as Chatham does fairly grind me down ,so with tickets at a bargain price of a mere £10 I couldn't really turn down a night out for that kind of money. So off we went to see Miss Polly Rae's Hurly Burly Show at the Garrack Theatre in Charing Cross.

Directed by William Baker this was a magnificent modern take on the kitsch kooky performance of Burlesque, helping it hit the mainstream that little bit more it  was open to women and men of all ages and looking at the crowd there was just as many women as men so this wasn't your average strip show. At first I have to admit I did feel slightly uncomfortable because I hadn't really seen this many women in so little before and it was all slightly crude but it was all fits and giggles and I realised I was being silly and soon got into it! I loved the fact that all the women were slightly different and weren't your average "pin up" so they weren't all with pin curls and cats eyes but just a gaggle of girls that knew how to dance.

What was I to expect, was it just girls taking their kit off through the show or would there be Shakespeare with extra twirling tassels. Well I'd have to say a bit of both! Of course all the ladies were rather good at slowly stripping the stockings off but there was humour and stylishly thought out themes such as western, police women and school girl... Sounds like a perverts dream come true but no it had class if a school girl can have class?

Each routine had a cleverly put together dance with songs to match such as Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, The Pet Shop Boy's it's a sin and their own self written tunes! And if those women were too much for you then there was a swooning crooner Spencer Day who certainly lightened my evening up, how he managed to control himself with all those beauts is beyond me, He worked his magic while the girls were changing for the next sketch and we girls were more than happy to sit there and drool.

Miss Polly Rae oozed confidence and sophistication and completely stole the show (and so she should as it was her show!) A petite scarlet vixen with a dazzling voice which was a little bit nice but a lot of Naughtiness. She had charm, she had class and she had the crowd in the palm of her hand as well as her Hurly Burly Girls .

With rhinestone encrusted outfits that if you blink you'll miss it, it was a show Dita Von Teese would be proud of, using companies such as Agent Provocateur and What Katie Did to name but a couple, for how scantily dressed the girls were it could have been easily misinterpreted for sleazy but no, thanks to the amount of teasing there was very little time to think about the strip!

This performance made me think that women are using this as a way of empowerment, something that makes them feel good and glamorous about themselves and damn right with burlesque work shops popping up all over the country this show made all the women in the audience think Yes I can do that,I can add a bit of bump and grind into my everyday life! Because that's what it got me thinking but as I have as much class as a plant pot and have two left feet I don't think I'll be stripping my draws off anytime soon, only  when it's time to put my pajamas on. A fab night out that made me proud to be a woman!

Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Photos by Chris Jackson curtesey of Google ;)