The Burlesque Hour

The Famous Spiegeltent, Melbourne

Tuesday, 13th December 2005

Starring: Moira Finuncane, Yumi Umiumare, Azaria Universe & The Town Bikes

SOLD OUT SEASON

SPECTACULAR! EXCITING! AMAZING! HOLY CRAP!

BEWARE! Rogue hoola-hoops, flying underpants, ice cream, stilts & bursting balloons may make their way into the audience.

I had wanted to see this last year, but I left it too late to buy a ticket and it sold out.

Learning my lesson I bought a ticket extra early this year. In the year since it appeared in Melbourne, the show had gone on to sold out performances in Edinburgh and rave reviews all round. I was nervous and excited all day as I had been looking forward to seeing the show ever since I picked up my ticket weeks ago.

The other reason I wanted to see it was that my favourite local dance performers, the Town Bikes were in it and I wanted to see how their act went with the show. It is a lot different to the shows that they normally do where they are in between rock bands and only have one or two performances for the night as they had to do three in quick succession. They have been really busy and I hope they get a good rest in between shows.

Rather than go into detail about the performances and possibly spoil it for people going in the future, I will just talk about the acts that I particularly enjoyed. All the performers were great, but some parts of the show made more of an impression on me.

First up was guest artist, Romeo with a really great Drag King act where she mimed along to the Divinyls ‘I touch myself’. I think it was a shock when she took of her top and some people weren’t expecting that.

Moira Finuncane was one of the main creators of the show and her performances were excellent with my favourites being the monologue ‘Argentina Gina Catalina’ and the many bursting balloons on sharp undergarments ‘Queen of Hearts’.

Yumi Umiumare’s performances were really high energy and exciting with a very disturbing ode to Hello Kitty in ‘Hellooo! It’s Kitty’s World!’ (she crawled around behind the audience with a Hello Kitty bag on her head meowing and saying ‘Hello Kitty!’) My favourite performance of Yumi’s was ‘My Kawaii Pupil – Top of the Class!’ where she danced around in a Japanese schoolgirls uniform and kept throwing a seemingly limitless supply of her underwear into the crowd.

I remember seeing Azaria Universe at the Town Bike’s ‘Appetite for Variety’ show last year when they went to the USA with Bob Log III. In this show I liked her ‘Desert of Love’ dance on stilts (ending with her walking all the way around the back of the crowd – very hard!) and also ‘Pearls…’ where she mimed Total Eclipse of the Heart on stage wearing nothing but lots of pearls and high heels.

All of the acts were accompanied by very well chosen music and the lighting was also very well done (I liked when it swung around to follow the performer as they walked around the outside of the audience.) The backstage staff also did their jobs wonderfully, meaning that each act started without delay.

I can’t think of a better show to see in the Spiegeltent as you are very close to the performers (don’t sit up the front unless you are feeling brave), and also the atmosphere is a lot different than watching it in a traditional venue. Everything I had heard about the venue turned out to be well founded and I am sure it is going to be in Melbourne even longer next year.

You may have missed the chance to see this in Melbourne, but hopefully it will make a return season in the future and travel overseas some time in the future. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who likes seeing something very different and entertaining and who also wants to have a great night out.

After the show I also got to meet some of the performers and ended up buying some souvenirs including a pair of underpants signed by all the performers in the show (it’s traditional in Japan.)

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