Do sequins make everything better? Are gym-wear, dildos and guillotines alike crying out for MORE GLITTER? If you answer yes, 'The Hurly Burly Show' might be for you. A lavish production marking the West End breakthrough of contemporary burlesque, it stars Miss Polly Rae, seven dancers and crooner Spencer Day; is directed by Kylie collaborator William Baker; and constitutes as sincere and indiscriminate a tribute to conventional glamour as you'll find.
Its dozen song-and-dance numbers zip from the boudoir to the church to the Wild West to the French Revolution, all sumptuous costumes, energetic choreography, calibrated naughtiness and that sinking feeling.
As a form, burlesque can show a performer taking pleasure in her own body on her own terms, satirise sexual and social mores, or celebrate diverse body types. Wit, insight and character are crucial to those aims but are of limited use to 'The Hurly Burly Show', a revue that instead revels in glitz.
The burden therefore shifts from performers to production yet the execution isn't tight enough truly to wow as spectacle. 'It's not about the tits but the eyes and the moves,' Polly Rae promises. The next line is more honest: 'My corsets are from Harrods and my gloves are from Milan.'