Viva La Vamp!

What’s your idea of absolute pleasure? Dear God, don’t say some poxy, repressed, suburban tranny fantasy straight out of Rocky Horror, the small-town sex guide supreme! No darlings, pure pleasure – the consummate, Stradivarius straddling of the mind, senses and sexuality – involves exquisite discrimination, not mindless consumption. Put bluntly, that means effort, the gradual, personal discovery of increasingly rarefied sensations that take you where no joy has gone before!

  


Does that search have a name? Oh yeah – Maximalism, the orgasmic ramping-up of every known mode of artistic expression! Arguably, it was first codified by gay French poet Arthur Rimbaud, who passionately believed that shockingly gorgeous art came from a ‘systematic derangement of the senses’.

Right or wrong, Rimbaud’s belief spawned a host of brilliantly excessive art; Picasso’s Guernica, the Chapman brothers’ remarkable Hell dioramas, and Duggie Fields’ dayglo, ultra-glam exoticism. And sure, there’s Maximalist music too, the consummate, bone-scraping miserabilism of Judy Garland’s darkest moments, and Billie Holliday’s sultry, heavenly smack-angel despair.

But vocally, Maximalism doesn’t get better than vintage filmstar Fenella Fielding’s swooning, weapons-grade charisma. Never heard of her? How cum? Darlings, get an instant, Google glamour injection now – Fenella simply sizzles the silver screen in Carry on Screaming and Carry on Regardless. All luscious consonants drenched in innuendo and pouting to the brim, she’s a one-woman poster saint for the pan-European exoticism that deluded, pro-Brexit bunnies loathe on sight.

Tough – that’s their tiny-minded, bigoted loss. Artfully shrouded in carefully-elusive mystique, Fenella’s the polar opposite of desperate, X-factor publicity junkies and their pitifully dull, mass-produced clichés. The simmering epitome of old-school elegance – think Joan Collins multiplied exponentially – Fenella’s slightest murmur electrifies and unforgettably inhabits an entire room.

Inexplicably, she’s never been deservedly lionised by the stage, film or TV industry, but remains an irreducibly unique national treasure, like killer chocolate marinated in absinthe. But perhaps, arguably, her singular talents are too special, and consistently, she’s struggled to find material – and scripts – extraordinary enough to contain her mercurial muse. One which did, however, was the legendary, West End run of Valmouth, a stunning, musical adaptation of author Ronald Firbank’s novel.

Both stylistically following Wilde and anticipating Joe Orton by decades, Firbank’s frothy but lush innuendoes tripped so gorgeously from Fenella’s lips they seduced critics en masse. Subsequently, she starred in Pieces of Eight, a stunningly-influential satire revue, and appeared in cult TV shows The Avengers, Danger Man and The Prisoner, and even Skins (!) in 2012.

Sure, her Carry On movies permanently branded her as an ageless, hugely erotic scar on the mid-60s British psyche, but the essence of Fenella, always, is her breathy delivery. No wonder her series of spoken-word, memoir shows at the Phoenix Artist Club are completely sold out; they’re two hours of spell-binding, pure raconteuse magic.

Beautifully old-school, courteous and cosy, the Phoenix fits Fenella’s impeccable graciousness as seamlessly as her signature, crushed scarlet velvet, Carry On Screaming gown. Forget the mysteries of any passing hunk’s pants – the Phoenix is Soho’s real secret crown jewels, its’ back-room art a suggestive display of bare-chested boxers and sprawling, post-orgasmic odalisques.

It’s a pictorial homage to Soho’s sexually volatile heritage, a pitch-perfect frame for Tarts and Gangsters, Fenella’s racy, forthcoming, audio-book memoir. Exquisitely shrewd, she pin-points and makes hilariously explicit the shady interface that’s always existed between crime, performance and paid pleasure, a faint, often dubiously-clear, distinction. Don’t all hookers, thugs and grand dames share a common ground in playing an appropriate part to a specific audience? For sure, and isn’t a fake, orgasmic moan – either cinematically or for a punter – just as effective a cash-cow as a gangster threatening violence?

They’re blackly comic conundrums Fenella adroitly dissects with witty aplomb, unforgettably cementing her status as a theatrical force of nature. Our advice? Catch her – whenever you can!

 

•Fenella Fieldings plays Crazy Coqs February 28th and The Phoenix Artist Club in June.

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