Lady Alex’s Fine Electric Layer Cake
by Erotic Towers Review Team
Lady Alex served up Wam Bam Electric with a sort of elegantly disdainful panache. This is, musically at least, a fine tribute to the 80s, energetically performed and bathed in that trashy, flashy period’s disco glitter. But never mind the nostalgia, it’s a superbly balanced show, more cabaret than burlesque, perhaps, but none the worse for that. Still, the Wam Bam Buff Boys and Belles turned out some burlesque routines that were enjoyably funny, yet slickly professional, while Folly Mixtures gal Ooh La Lou gave a sparkly (yes, literally) life-enhancing performance with the sort of extrovert joie de vivre that you wish you could bottle and take home with you.
Throughout there were some excellent nods to the decade that belonged to the likes of Tina Turner (deliciously parodied by the Tina Turner Tea Lady) and David Bowie: with his incredibly powerful voice and a space-balletic trapeze number, Reuben Kaye’s take on Space Oddity did some hilarious rearranging to that old favourite. How is it possible to be so sharply witty when upside down?
Hula Boy’s was a jaw-dropping crowd-pleaser of an act, honed to perfection, a dazzling, kaleidoscopic display of coloured kinesis, while Joe Foley’s aerial trapeze work was also alarmingly good.
We don’t know why it’s taken us so long to encounter the musical comedy act Rayguns Look Real Enough, but this was our first exposure to this awesome duet and it was love at first note. We’re not going to go into a detailed description because, readers, you should go and see the brilliance for yourselves. Belushi and Ackroyd were called to mind, without the frantic dancing, true, but there were compensations for that. Like the exposure of an enormous hairy belly. Like some truly excellent guitar and the catchphrase: ‘Release the Tiger!’ For us, this was the cerise on Lady Alex’s many-layered gâteau. We urge you – don’t miss this clever, riotous piece of entertainment.
Best Belly: Ray Gunn
Best Bottom: Ooh La Lou
Best Pecs: The Wam Bam Buff Boy in the George Michael wig
Best Hula: We’ll let you guess that one.
Sharpest Wit and Sequins: Reuben Kaye
Best Aerial Acrobatics: Jo Foley
Wam Bam Electric’ Friday Evening Show at Rise Superclub, 1 Leicester Square London WC2H is bookable here
Photographs: Simon Goodchild
