Tonight at the Olympia, for one night only, a real live human BIRDGIRL, or if your prefer, BASQUE terrorist in RED LIPSTICK and FISHNETS, singing torch songs for swinging lovers – swinging from a crossbeam that is, bereaved and broken and botched but blessed to have tasted the stuff of love in the first place, oh yes, their last breath having gone something like ‘ne me quitte pas”. But WAIT, that’s not all: there’s more to this neon GO-GO sideshow slideshow coin-operated PEEPSHOW than a self-satisfied ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’, (although that’s here if you want it too), more than only-the-lonely and all that hazy cosmic torch jazz jive, so STEP right up – here’s a tincture of Corko-Parisian GLAM to go with your side order of Fellini and fin de siecle we-got-five-years fatalism (Misery’s the river of the world, quoth Tom, People ain’t no good replies Nick: Ms O’Sullivan sits betwixt and plays honest brokeress to both). And here’s a dose of good old CARNY folk show-must-go-on backbone and showbiz Camille STEEL, for our bodacious hostess sports not prosthesis but METAL pins in her flesh ones on account of a near fatal and decidedly non-EROTIC auto accident, but hey, she crawled from her hospital bed just to be here with you folks tonight, I tell ya, give this gal a sniff of the CORK and she’s‘ good to go, a super trouper, a true blue hoofer, a bustiered burlesque arteeeest don’tcha know. And just who is that daring young hussy on the flying trapeze?’ mutter the fishwives in the nosebleed seats, slapping their leering hubby on the knee when his unguent MELTS from the heat generated by yond’ chanteuse what coos Kirsty’s ‘In Your Shoes’ and Dr Simone’s ‘Sugar In My Bowl’ like Monroe dressed as a widow or Marlene with a jumpstarted heart. All this plus a visit to ‘Suffragette City’ and a daytrip to the Thom York theme park of HEARTBREAK (‘No Surprises’ there) and Brel’s ‘Bulls’, and in the end, well, the end is not the end.
That’s all folks. Show’s over. Move along.