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March 27, 2018March 27, 2018

BREVIEW: The Gilded Merkin Burlesque & Cabaret @ The Glee Club (B’ham) 18.03.18

Words & Illustrations by Emily Doyle

It’s a Sunday night and The Gilded Merkin has returned to The Glee Club in Birmingham. Patrons fill the room. Two litre jugs of the venue’s signature ‘Long Island Iced Glee’ litter the tables. The lights dim and the audience buzzes expectantly.

Our host for the evening is the charming Stage Door Johnny. He casts an eye over the full room and congratulates the audience on making it through the snowstorm outside. Thankfully, he muses, it’s not as severe as the forecast predicted.

“This isn’t the first time I was promised six inches.”

Stage Door Johnny does all he can to make every person in the room feel welcome. He briefs “burlesque virgins” on how to behave, giving everyone a reminder of the etiquette in song form. Functional as it may be, his background in musical theatre shows; he’s currently doing a turn as Sweeney Todd at the Wolverhampton Grand Theatre.

Once the room is sufficiently warmed up, Stage Door Johnny welcomes The Gilded Merkin performer and producer, Scarlett Daggers, to the stage. Known to regulars as “the lady behind the merkin”, Daggers is eager to kick off proceedings with her ‘Tiki Tiki Boom’ act and appears draped in an oversized lei. She performs a fast-paced, playful striptease to Los Straitjackets’ surf-revival classic, ‘Kawanga’ – to be left standing in a tiny fringed bikini, at which point she produces a pair of fire-orange silks.

Daggers then performs a scarf dance which, presumably due to health and safety restrictions in such an intimate venue, replaces the fire eating portion of this routine. The silks don’t have the same glamour as flames, but when she ends the act standing triumphantly in pants and pasties, no one feels hard done by.

Mr B. The Gentleman Rhymer is next to perform. The Gilded Merkin’s stage manager, Mimi Libertine, assembles a mic stand and a board of looper pedals as Mr B. arrives on the stage, clad head to toe in tweed. He holds a banjolele. Mr B. performs his in his own musical style – ‘Chap Hop’ – and combining comedy rap with electro-swing beats, he opens with an ode to gentlemanship, ‘All Hail The Chap’.

“It’s a call to charms, a design for living,
Within a world so unforgiving,
Where sloth and banality are the standard brew.
Well, we’ve upped our standards,
So up yours too!”

As is true of many comedy musicians, the punchline comes early on in the performance. The set holds up well musically, though, and Mr B.’s lyrical delivery is flawless. He performs a hip-hop melody which weaves its way from The Sugarhill Gang to Public Enemy, followed by a Blackstreet parody with the refrain “No dignity (were you dragged up?)”.

Stage Door Johnny reappears to introduce his royal hairiness, Dave the Bear – who swaggers on stage like a brawny Captain Jack Sparrow, swigging from a bottle as a gruff sea shanty plays over the PA. He poses centre stage with his arms in shackles, and winks; in a flash, the shackles are off and the feathers atop his bicorne hat have begun to litter the stage.

Dave the Bear is a delight to watch as he poses, pouts, and sprinkles glitter into his chest hair. This does, however, leave our stage manager Mimi a lot of sweeping to do before the next act can take the stage – as Stage Door Johnny warns the audience that those of a nervous disposition may wish to look away, before allowing Lolo Brow to come out.

A table is laid with an assortment of items – a mousetrap and a staple gun are visible. Brow flings the curtains aside and storms to the front. She wears thigh high boots and a red military jacket tucked into a tight latex waist cincher. Extinguishing the cigarette she was smoking, on her tongue, she proceeds to flip the audience off before pulling a small hammer from the top of her right stocking. She then performs a classic ‘human blockhead’ act choreographed to Rihanna’s ‘S&M’.

There is visible delight on her face as she invites a member of the front row to remove a nail from her nasal cavity, before replacing it with a pair of scissors. By the end of the act, Brow has playing cards stapled to her thighs and chest; the audience winces as she staples the final card to her cheek and takes a bow, leaving behind a mucus ridden condom. Lucky Mimi.

Stage Door Johnny re-emerges to close the first act. And after Lolo Brow‘s performance, everyone is ready for a trip to either the bathroom or the bar.

In a change of pace, Miss Betsy Rose is welcomed to the stage to perform her 1950’s inspired routine – ‘Ode to April’. Miss Rose luxuriates in an enormous lilac feather boa and invites audiences members to help remove her golden gloves, before upping the tempo for a bump and grind routine. Her opulent costume and period accurate soundtrack evoke a 1950s American burlesque club; every step is carefully choreographed and it’s easy to see why she is so well regarded.

A hulking figure now appears at the back of the room, shrouded in furs. As he walks through the crowd, his long nordic braid swings from the top of his head and down the back of his cloak. He carries a hammered shield. Reaching the stage, he turns and strikes a pose lifted straight from an ancient Greek vase. He looks up, and grins. Dave the Bear has returned.

Tamar Braxton’s dance hit ‘Hot Sugar’ kicks in. Without missing a beat, Dave the Bear’s posture goes from gladiator to gogo-dancer. He whips his braid back and forth and struts across the front row, shimmying out of each item of leather armour until very little is left to the imagination. Both of his performances tonight rely on a kind of bait-and-switch, building up an archetypal macho male before joyously tearing that character to shreds with glitter and kissy faces. The most masculine thing about Dave the Bear’s performance isn’t his hirsute torso, but his brazenness.

Mr B. rounds off the second act with another set, this time featuring a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Starman’. Whilst this does dilute his chap-hop persona a little, it’s refreshingly heartfelt.

After another short interval, Scarlett Daggers remerges. This time she wears a floor length fishtail dress, complete with embellished cobra hood. Over the course of the act she sheds this skin to reveal a floaty, chiffon number. Stage Door Johnny then takes centre stage to perform his own interpretation of Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, Je ne regrette rien’ – think Flight of the Conchords’ ‘Foux Da Fa Fa’ and you’re half way there.

Lolo Brow is welcomed back with a collective intake of breath, but she assures the room that this will be a more visually pleasing act. “My name’s Lolo Brow and I’m going to take my clothes off”

Her purple dress and green hair are reminiscent of the Joker, and tonight we are all going to be a part of her social experiment. She explains that she has given the sound engineer an mp3 player loaded with two-hundred tracks, ranging from stripper staples to the soundtrack from High School Musical. The mp3 player will be set to shuffle, and Lolo Brow will begin her striptease. If the audience wants to hear a different song, they have to shout “change”. This is ‘The Burlesque Shuffle’.

What ensues is perhaps the most anarchic five minutes to ever grace the boards at The Glee Club. The beauty of the concept is that Brow’s performance is different every time. On this occasion it opens with Liberty X’s noughties banger, ‘Just a Little’, and culminates in Brow revealing her bedazzled nipples to the strains of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

The final performance of the night is Miss Betsy Rose. Following straight on from Lolo Brow is a bold juxtaposition, but it works. Her routine, titled ‘Lady Sublime’, is a sultry affair that echoes 1920s burlesque – draped head to toe in mint green sequins and sporting an enormous feather headpiece.

Set to a version of Duke Ellington’s 1927 ‘Black and Tan Fantasy’, this is without a doubt the night’s most decadent performance. Miss Betsy Rose lets down her hair, shrugs of her robes and executes the splits with balletic precision. The Gilded Merkin is brought to a fitting climax.

The Gilded Merkin returns to The Glee Club Birmingham on Sunday 14^th October – presented by Scarlett Daggers, with Abigail Collins, Anna Fur Laxis, Kiki Lovechild, Missy Malone and Demi Noir also performing. For direct show information, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk/performer/gilded-merkin-birmingham

For more on The Gilded Merkin, visit www.gildedmerkin.co.uk

For more from The Glee Club venues, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk

March 26, 2018March 27, 2018

BREVIEW: Paloma Faith @ Genting Arena 21.03.18

Words & pics by Eleanor Sutcliffe

I never thought I’d witness a Genting Arena steward dance. Yet here I was, an hour into Paloma Faith’s show, watching a red-haired stewardess shimmy down the central aisle to the bemusement of the surrounding crowd.

Call it cliché, but it was unavoidable – the atmosphere of the evening was intoxicating, and it was all down to Paloma Faith’s incredible performance.

As the lights went down and the stage glowed an ominous red, Faith appeared and strode down the opposite staircase to where the four other photographers and I had been placed. Cue an awkward minute or so of camera clutching as we waited for Faith to safely descend in a pair of mammoth white heels, microphone in hand, as she sang the title track from her latest album The Architect. The stage resembled something out of a post-apocalyptic Sci Fi film, with holographic geometric platforms housing her band whom she referred to as “the dream team”.

One thing I was taken aback by was just how fond I grew of Paloma Faith as the performance went on. Between songs, she touched on numerous subjects such as childbirth, self-love, politics and war, with the charm and finesse only the Hackney-born singer could possess. Not pedantic or patronising (as some artists can be on these subjects) but delivered heartfelt and in all honesty, even hilarious at times.

Faith is not one to skirt around details either, as she recounted her hopes for a relaxed home birth before “it all went to shit, and I became a well of pus – Beyoncé didn’t have that, surely”. These witty anecdotes grounded the evening’s performance, leaving the audience cheering for more.

And what a performance it was. Faith’s set list contained a whole host of tracks, both old and new. Songs such as ‘Crybaby’ and ‘My Body’ proved to be hits with the crowd, who were beginning to rise from their seats and dance along. Watching two women leap up and run down the main aisle whilst being chased by security, during ‘Warrior’, was a true highlight to the evening, especially when Faith actively encouraged their behaviour.

Her slower songs proved to hit a poignant note with the crowd too. Faith’s duet of ‘I’ll Be Gentle’ with her guitarist, BB Bones, left my jaw slack in awe, as did her rendition of ‘Picking up the Pieces’.

Although Faith is working hard to craft herself a new niche in today’s music scene, she hasn’t strayed too far from her former work – a refreshing change from the numerous artists that attempt to reinvent themselves every few years.

But that’s the beauty of a Paloma Faith show, the dynamic is simply ever changing – from clambering onto a grand piano to mournfully sing ‘Just Be’, to knee sliding along the stage during Sigala’s hit single ‘Changing’, you never quite know what you’re going to get. Apart from a bloody good show; that’s a given.

For more on Paloma Faith, visit www.palomafaith.com

For more from SJM Concerts/Gigs and Tours, visit www.gigsandtours.com

For more form the Genting Arena, including full event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.gentingarena.co.uk

March 23, 2018March 23, 2018

BREVIEW: Evita @ Birmingham Hippodrome until 24.03.18

Words by Eleanor Sutcliffe / Production shots by Pamela Raith

I adore Birmingham Hippodrome. Granted, I’m not the most well-versed theatre critic, however there is something rather decadent about settling yourselves into the plush red seats ready to absorb an hour or three of theatrical roguery.

Hurling ourselves into the world of 1940s Argentinean politics, it is the opening night for Evita – the long running musical written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, that focuses on the life and untimely death of Argentinean political and social icon Eva Perón.

Church pillars and weeping mourners set the scene as Eva Perón’s casket is brought onto the stage. It is during this opening sequence that we meet the three key performers for the evening. Che, played by Gian Marco Schiaretti, is our narrator; sporting a black flat cap, he ponders the true motives behind Evita’s charity and her rise from poverty to political aristocracy. Next is her husband, Juan Perón, who is brought to life with military precision by Jeremy Secomb.

And finally, silhouetted against a portrait donning the church walls, is Evita herself. Madalena Alberto has had plenty of practice in this role since her critically acclaimed performance in the West End revival of Evita back in 2014, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. As the lead role, Alberto is simply captivating throughout the entire production – from the sprightly 15 year old who runs away with tango singer Agustín Magaldi to Buenos Aires, to the blonde, sophisticated flame of Juan Perón, her impeccable acting skills pay tribute to the late First Lady with class and demeanour I could only wish to have.

The first half shows Evita’s lust for power, as she slowly makes her way to the top of the social ladder in Buenos Aires. At a time where sexual promiscuity was considered sinful and wretched, watching Evita manipulate various lovers to obtain social power was truly entertaining, especially when coupled with the song ‘Goodnight and Thank You’.

This rise to stardom results in her colliding with Juan Perón at a charity concert, and after seducing him with the promise of becoming an asset to his career they soon become an item. The stage glides to and fro as balconies are pushed forwards and backwards for different scenes, from the staging of a military coup using musical chairs during ‘The Art of the Possible’ to the energetic choreography of ‘Eva, Beware of the City’, the cast make use of every inch of the Hippodrome stage with minimal props.

Following an interval (and a glass or two of wine) we returned to the reveal of Juan Perón’s successful election as Prime Minister, with Evita delivering a powerful speech as the First Lady bedecked in a glittering white ball gown. The second half passes in the blink of an eye, as we witness Evita embark on her renowned ‘Rainbow Tour’ of Europe without her husband, and her resulting ill health. Despite this, she seemingly perseveres with her saintly actions, setting up a charity and literally showering her supporters with money.

This is where Che truly comes into form – stripping back the glamour that Evita covers herself with, he reveals a woman spurned by political aristocracy who has carefully moulded the Argentinean people into supporters for her husband. Sombre and lonely, he narrates Evita’s life as she tirelessly works to prove herself as a saint not only to Juan Perón and her critics, but to the people of the world. The scenes surrounding her demise and following death are truly heart wrenching – the performances given by both Secomb and Alberto are harrowingly beautiful as Evita laments for the life she could have lived, had she not pursued fame and glory.

True, the production is somewhat lacking in what my mother would describe as ‘fancy stuff’. But that is the beauty of a theatrical piece such as Evita – it simply is not needed. Props and lights could never replace what this cast deliver, which is a highly emotionally performance guaranteed to resonate, to some extent at least, with anyone who is lucky enough to see it.

Evita runs at the Birmingham Hippodrome until Saturday 24^th March. For direct show information, including a full breakdown of dates, times and online ticket purchasing, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com/calendar/evita

For more on the Birmingham Hippodrome, including venue details and further event listings, visit www.birminghamhippodrome.com

March 16, 2018

BREVIEW: Phil Wang @ The Glee Club 11.03.18

Words by Helen Knott

Phil Wang emerges on stage at The Glee Club to the strains of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’, setting the scene for an evening where the influence of his East Asian heritage is never too far away.

During this 90 minute show, titled Kinabalu – named after the highest mountain in Malaysia, Phil Wang covers a multitude of topics, from Chinese New Year, to his aim to die a hero’s death, to his dislike of scary movies (which he dismisses as “a purely western privilege” as no one needs to watch scary movies in Syria). Wang‘s on-stage persona is of a 28-year-old man who is probably not quite as cool as he thinks he is. He may equate buying lube with being a true adult, but he’s buying it in Waitrose and he’s not happy about the high price.

The set is littered with brilliant gags (personal favourite: “You ever done a fart so bad you lose a bar on the Wi-Fi?”) but Wang is most compelling when he concentrates on serious issues. His heritage – he’s half Malaysian, half British – gives him a strong voice on subjects such as Brexit, colonialism, and racism. Wang may have lived in the UK for his entire adult life, but he maintains an outsider’s point of view: for example, he feels more comfortable being patriotic than his British-born friends because he knows what it’s like to live somewhere without the things we take for granted. In short, “You can drink your tap water!”

Wang’s section on Brexit may include some fairly straightforward quips (“I voted remain, as you can tell by my vocabulary”) but it comes through the filter of his childhood in Malaysia, which was part of the British Empire. He argues that globalisation, which brought his parents together and Wang to the UK, came about because of entities like the British Empire. Therefore, in his eyes it’s not a wholly negative period of history, for Malaysia at least. He suggests that the EU is “the first empire built by peace instead of war”, and he’s disappointed that the British public rejected it. It’s interesting stuff, and a take on Brexit (a subject that no comedian seems to be able to avoid at the moment) that is genuinely fresh on the stand up circuit.

Despite the show’s focus on Phil Wang as an entity – his family, his career, his relationships – you get surprisingly little sense of Wang the man. He still has his guard up, often referring to himself in the third person and continually punning on his own surname for a cheap laugh. The only part of the show where it feels like you see the authentic Phil Wang is when, after a section about his girlfriend, he admits that they split up a month ago but he hasn’t bothered to change his material. It’s a fleeting feeling however, as the newly-single Wang quickly turns it into a hammy call-out for groupies.

As a show, Kinabalu is a little too long and doesn’t have much of an overarching thrust – it really just peters out at the end. But when you have jokes as good as Phil Wang, it doesn’t matter too much. Although on his next tour I’m hoping for maybe fewer lube stories and more insightful political analysis.

For more on Phil Wang, visit www.philwang.co.uk

For more from The Glee Club venues, including further event listings and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018

SINGLE: ‘Oh Friend’ – Hunger Moon

Words by Ed King / Pics courtesy of Hunger Moon

On Monday 12^th March, Hunger Moon release their debut single ‘Oh Friend’ – wasting precious little time for a band that only formed at the tail end of last year, ‘deep in the heart of Birmingham’s warehouse and creative quarter’.

Out now and ‘available to stream on all major music platforms’, you can always make your own minds up with a quick visit to Soundcloud, Spotify or iTunes. Hunger Moon will also be supporting Joseph J. Jones at The Sunflower Lounge on Tuesday 13th March, if you wanted to check this out live and firsthand – for direct gig info, click here.

But who need independent thought or travel? Sit back, make yourself a cup of tea, look wistfully at rain, and let Birmingham Review do all the cognitive reasoning. Ssshhhh, there there… We’ll tell you.

But first a bit of background… Hunger Moon are the newly formed two piece from vocalist Natalie Jenkins and multi instrumentalist James Atwood, with a sound that draws immediate comparisons to London Grammar and Daughter. Their debut single, ‘Oh Friend’, had Ryan Pinson working behind the glass – with the skeleton written and rehearsed in Digbeth, and the skin produced at RML Studios in Wolverhampton. So, there’s a pretty solid start.

In the words of Hunger Moon, ‘Oh Friend is an ode to companionship, which has been the single constant within the lives of the duo over the past year throughout changes, some for better and others for worse’ and you get an immediate sense of longing, loss, or both.

Mournful yet comforting, ‘Oh Friend’ opens with an echoed guitar riff that is the linchpin to the Daughter comparison. Then after about 15 seconds, Jenkins’ vocals power though with the titular lyrics and ushering in the London Grammar comparison. This low cloud rolls across the horizon, with some ‘soft piano nuances and subtle electronics’ nudging their way in towards the end of Minute #1, before the instrumentation steps back leaving Jenkins’ vocals to introduce the first crescendo towards the end of Minute #2. A silent thunderclap… and downpour, with the emotional ebb and flow continuing in layers until the end of this nearly 5min single.

There is a beautiful proficiency to ‘Oh Friend’, with a confident subtly propelling an addictive melody. It’s not an easy sound to deliver well, and Hunger Moon have taken some bold steps down a road that is full of homage and potholes. But superbly handled by Ryan Pinson, the delicate strength that this genre requires is given its appropriate balance here. Plus, it could have been easily clipped to make it more radio (length) friendly but in fact saves the best minute for last.

As debuts go, ‘Oh Friend’ is solid introduction, managing to find a new corner of the electro/pop shadows to lurk in. The melody is rife too, which bodes well for an album of material to wrap around it – an LP we sincerely hope is on its way. But if we were to find one piece of constructive criticism, as is our job, it would be that the strength of Jenkins’ vocals can sometimes be a little, a small touch on the desk perhaps, too much in the lead. And to jump back to the two previous comparisons, one of these bands falls into this trap too, whist the other nails it perfectly on its perfect nail shaped head.

So, this is a little par for the course for the genre, kinda sorta. And having a strong asset in your box of musical tricks is one of those better problems to have. But for the first foray for Hunger Moon, ‘Oh Friend’ is cracking introduction from a band we have a sneaking suspicion have a lot more to offer over the next twelve months.

‘Oh Friend’ – Hunger Moon

Hunger Moon release their debut single, ‘Oh Friend’, on Monday 12^th March – available through all major music platforms.

Hunger Moon will also be performing at The Sunflower Lounge on Tuesday 13^th March, supporting Joseph J. Jones – for direct gig information, click here.

For more on Hunger Moon, including links to stream ‘Oh Friend’, visit www.facebook.com/hungermoonmusic