REVIEW THE CABARET OF IDA BUCKET – THE GREEN ROOM,
MANCHESTER June 5th 2008.
Strange to be writing an obituary for someone who never
existed. The Ida Bucket cabaret celebrated the life and work of the oldest
burlesque and cabaret star since Eartha Kitt, Ida Bucket – still tripping and
dancing and singing and stripping away in her 70’s. Now, sadly, Ida Bucket has kicked the bucket she was named after.
The Green Room event ran for two years in her honour, mixing all aspects of
live cabaret, comedy, poetry, performance and burlesque.
I meant to get to the show throughout its history, having
been a regular at the Green Room from Rosie Lugosi’s Creatures Of The Night
poetry slams, and still attending Dominic Berry’s Freed Up poetry events
there. Performers often include dancers
from Bell Besame’s burlesque team, Slippery Belle too. Sadly, the only show I was destined to get
to be the very last Ida Bucket – set to a requiem theme for the star it was
established to commemorate.
The fun-funeral theme was entered into with gusto. A near
unlimited supply of ham sandwiches was provided, just as often happens at
funeral events. There was a nicely presented order of service flyer, which was
not followed too closely in the show. The opening rendition of Queen’s I want
To Break free was totally forgotten for example.
Fortunately, the burlesque dance by Bella Besame was still
very much on. Bella organizes and choreography’s the girls of many of the
Burlesque shows I have attended in recent years (see
BURLESQUE)
though this was the first time I have seen her dance herself. It’s clear why
the ladies of her Slippery Belle troop do so well given the standard of
performance set by their teacher. Bella was dressed in widow black, and danced
with two large black fans. Many of the
girls she has taught such arts came along to show their appreciation and
support too.
There was a comedy from poet and singer Chris Fitzimmons,
who told a Ronnie Corbett style gag bout a man in a pub with a piano playing
gerbil. He then asked the audience to pick a song from the Rocky Horror Show
for him to perform. Ladies in the audience quickly picked the Touch Me song
which he coped with admirably.
Balcony Bingo offered tow performances – the first in
strange fixed white masks as they danced in clogs and river-danced – imagine
Dr. Who Autons doing that and you get the idea. Someone else compared them to
Slipknot. Their second performance was
in ordinary clothes as they sang some songs to accordion accompaniment.
Funniest act by far was the delightfully politically
incorrect Iranian ‘lady’ in a burkha, singing Iranian Man to the tune of It’s
raining Men, and offering her own take on the YMCA song too.
The comperes now tried to conduct a Derek Acorah style
séance to raise the spirit of dear departed Ira Bucket herself, but managed to
raise only a man in need of Strepsils (the performer nearly choking himself
trying to imitate a trance0 and her next door neighbour. It was probably still more believable than
anything the real Derek Acorah does though.
The final act should have been the penultimate one - Dirty Oinky
– the pig faced clown, who talks like Clint Eastwood, may be one of the most
sinister clowns since Pennywise in Stephen King’s It. I thought I might get
some joshing as I was wearing a tee-shirt bearing the words ‘Can’t sleep –
Clowns will eat me’ but he never noticed that. His act was to invite a member of the audience up to join him in
a suicide pact stunt in grief over the loss of Ida Bucket. Host, Jonathon
Richardson, (Lady J at Bella Besame’s events (took up the call, and with help
from a lady in the audience they made Ida’s cardboard tombstone and then
swallowed the contents of cartons of concentrated tomato juice. and died in a
spray of blood as they released it from their mouths. Dirty unfortunately
sprayed his tomato juice all over the front few rows of the audience, which
included a number of ladies in expensive designer dresses. They were not all
amused. The closing sing-a-long was abandoned because the floor was now awash
and slippery.
A lovely night of irreverent comedy and quality
entertainment – Ida may be dead, but the performers will no doubt go onto
greatness and hopefully, like a Phoenix, Ida Bucket will ride again one day.
Arthur Chappell
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