Alex Chappel heads to Proud Camden Kitchen to see what happens when you order a burlesque show with your dinner.
Ranging from the risque to the frankly bizarre, Burlesque After Dark has a certain sense of quality about it, but a good honest informality bordering on shabbiness - a good shabbiness. From the bench seating arrangements to the staging, there is an intimacy and unpretentiousness, which celebrates the great British talent of not take oneself too seriously. This night of Burlesque could be infinitely more navel-gazy and posturing but it isn’t.
Waitresses scantily clad in matching underwear is a restaurant style choice which would have had everyone from Germaine Greer to Gordon Ramsay choking on their foie gras. But as the Burlesque bandwagon continues apace into 2012, firmly into mainstream, even into ubiquity (dare I say saturation point), it is now something which seems perfectly unremarkable, at worst “all part of the fun”. And it looks like the time-honoured purveyor of the celebrity art show Alex Proud has himself a season ticket.
For £39, every Friday and Saturday night punters can enjoy a cabaret show along with their 3-course meal at Proud Kitchen, the restaurant annexing Proud’s Camden venue, and we are warned in the blurb to “expect to be shocked”. I visit with a cabaret artist friend of mine, let’s call her Bendy Girl. Bendy performs at similar events so she seems a fitting companion.
Our hosts for the night are Moonfish Rhumba, a somewhat uninspiring male duet who entertain us with a little light comedy and amusing song, before we get down to the main acts. Over our starters, strolls on stage, a buxom young lady lass wearing a stars 'n' stripes leotard but performing a surprisingly dark routine that demonstrates her prowess when it comes to taking nails out of her nostrils and walking on broken glass.
Soon Missy Fatale turns a classic fan-dance – an accomplished and even mesmerising one but, well, it’s a classic fan-dance and I feel a bit short changed. But the BOYlesqe we're promised warms up the night and our “boy” arrives in a sailors outfit strutting to Peter Gabriel’s sledgehammer. A chair is involved, as is a banana, and some squirty cream, in a bit of audience participation, before Duncan Donut begins to peel off the many layers of sailing garb that make up a performance that is itself layered.
Main course is brought and feeling festive I've gone for the turkey, while Bendy sticks with fish, and on comes comedian Chris Lynam to go with the good albeit slightly limited menu (good for me as I hate choosing) but don’t expect the Ivy. Sadly, the comedy interlude makes the evening’s momentum stumble a bit, as I, and the rest of the audience by account of their noises, feel that this is not quite what we signed up for.
Finding my turkey a little dry, my sentiment extends to the act before me. But just in time somewhat mature clown-come-comedian fellow is stripping off, introducing to us, from behind a screen, a balloon dance with 3 hairy men of dwindling vertical statistics. This spectacle is a nice, odd, highly amusing surprise that leads the way for some gravy-swabbing and note-swapping over wine before I make a trip to the little boy’s room via a young lady inflating a blow-up doll. We’re into round 2, which involves the same performers in different guises.
The bench seating means you’re better off going for a birthday party than on a date. But if you’re up for a good laugh, a bizarre spectacle and some nice grub thrown in, well it’s worth a punt.
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