CABARET

I must be one of the few regular festival-goers to have never seen Fascinating Aida.  Luckily my request came good this year and as I queued up along-side the hordes of middle aged couples and groups of what looked like mature shall we say, hen parties, I wondered if this show may not be quite up my street.

How wrong I was.  I was in stitches throughout, not quite to the levels of hysteria like some surrounding me, but I can honestly say I laughed from start to finish.  These are the ladies that should be on our TV screens, not the anti-feminist anti-Christ’s of the Loose Women lot.  How about giving these three a TV deal so we the unemployed could have some actual entertainment midday?  Imagine them interviewing Cheryl Cole or Katy Perry: they would tear them to pieces.

Back to the show and it’s hard to say what were highlights and what not.  Particular crowd-pleasers seemed to be ‘Dogging’: a solo from pianist and lynch-pin Dillie Keane; which she prefaces with the line, in her gravelly whisky stained growl: ‘Those of a sensitive disposition.. What the fuck are you doing here?’

The numbers are all topical, including references to the scoundrel Jimmy Carr in a song about tax evasion and the requisite mention to Fifty Shades of Grey.

A surprise of the night was Liza Pullman singing a sincere number about being freed from the shackles of a destructive relationship.  Since taking a year off Pullman has returned to FA and all the more glad we are for that.  Pullman’s performance demonstrated how the show is enjoyable not only for the lyrical wizardry but equally the musicality.

At times I thought some of the humour was perhaps directed to a slightly older audience, as previously mentioned.  ‘Down with the Kids’ was one of these moments, yet when I was happy to take a back seat in the laughter, Dillie threw in a phrase such as getting ‘my minge vajazzled’ and I was off again.

I could tell you to go and see this show come rain or shine, sickness or health but to be quite honest the name Fascinating Aida precedes them: they live up to the hype and exceed it.

SA