A Small Mind At The Theatre

My first trip to Royal & Derngate of 2015 provided myself with an interesting first of its own, my first burlesque show, suitably titled The Burlesque Show. Now I knew quite well what burlesque entailed and wondered what the experience of going to such a show would be (erotic, arousing, or uncomfortable?). However I was greatly advised on Twitter (@chrispoppe and @mudbeast76) that it would be a well worth experience. Turned out that it was really rather entertaining and great fun all round. The sensible plan of this review would be to cover the burlesque first I suppose, although for me it was a great deal more than that (and t'other was indeed the best part). There were three main burlesque artists performing on the evening; Immodesty Bliaze, Alexandra Hofgartner and Miss Betty Blue-Eyes. Immodesty Bliaze we were informed was one the the greatest of the art and without doubt the show(wo)manship was exemplary, however I suspect personal tastes are quite prevalent with this ki...

I have been a fan of magic since growing up with it on my telly in the eighties. During that decade of my youth, the now much maligned king was Paul Daniels, and he was a Saturday night fix attracting between 12-15 million viewers in its heydays. It is now considered rubbish, old fashioned, and not worth your time by an audience that now watches The X-Factor on a weekly basis. Go figure. However, magic has always appealed to me from my television armchair and when the BBC revived magic for the Saturday night audience in the form of the series The Magicians a few years back, I watched. Although it sadly struggled to gain much foothold on the viewing figures, I enjoyed it and it introduced a brand new generation of modern day magicians. Youthful, edgy, and occasionally totally bizarre, they breathed new life into the genre as they plied their skills in some often spectacular and downright scary tricks. One of them was the young (well younger than me anyway) Pete Firman from and l...