What makes French eroticism so dick-throbbingly memorable? Well, the sheer style, darlings; French couplings – whatever genders take part –have none of the Viz Comics squalor that typifies chav-tastic British shags!
But there’s much more to panache than perfectly shaved, perfumed pussies and pec implants. Eroticism – as opposed to quick, one-way wanks using other people’s holes – crucially depends on lights, setting and texture, a multi-media, virtual orgasm perfectly manifested by Crazy Horse.
That should come as no surprise. Whether privately or in the imaginative, public space created by movies and fashion, French expressions of sexuality have always been overtly coy and stormingly theatrical. No wonder wunderkinder Jean Paul Gaultier is a Crazy Horse fanatic – the show constantly deploys light like an alien abduction tool, probing and highlighting all those naughty, human holes audience eyes eat alive!
Frankly, the show’s a Clive Barker Pinhead’s wet dream; all possible human depravity is suggested by the merest thrust of light on a diaphanous G-string. Better still, the sex even gets abstract; light works on and textures flesh like sensuous, Aliens architecture, the Shard reconfigured as a miniature, pulsing clitoris. Ah, not literally, you understand? Rather, it’s the intense, sexual suggestibility rendered by Crazy Horse that gives it constant wood.
And yes, all the chicks – who may or may not once have had dicks – are Barbie doll babes personified and sure, the dance moves make Rihanna look differently abled, so why, finally, do you feel like a punter with a poxy pro who can’t make you come?
In a word, arrogance. There’s stunning complacency in a high-profile show that tours the world but still completely relies on backing tapes, like a crappy lip-syncher who can’t afford musicians. In some ways, Crazy Horse is a direct descendent of pre-World War 2 poses plastique shows, where mute lovelies threw frozen, on-stage shapes to a soundtrack of bland muzak from artfully concealed musicians. Worse still, the show reeks of chauvinistic fetishism. Throughout, the women are treated, lit and choreographed as passive, male pleasure objects, allowed no sly delight in their femininity like true glamazons Marlene Dietrich or Lady Gaga. Is this really chic unique, 21st century empowerment? Shouldn’t just one Lisbeth Salander clone take the stage with scantily-dressed attitude?
Apparently not. And in a laughable echo of the even more bizarre, post-war, British Soldiers In Skirts shows, where Joe Public seriously entertained the notion that buying tickets for demobbed geezers in drags was a noble, national gesture, Crazy Horse do a lame parody of the Coldstream Guards in heir signature, towering bear-skin Busbys, predictably titled Bareskins.
Sadly, all the cute, if trite, Salvador Dali sofas in the world can’t conceal Crazy Horse’s core of deeply conservative camp.
Still – thank the Lord Jesus – there are precisely two bright spots. Intentionally short-bobbed, small-breasted Enny Gmatic teasingly suggests the notion of a freshly-reassigned transsexual showgirl, expertly ridiculing every strippers cliché ever seen, and mimics the only scap of ersatz, male narcissism present tonight. Then there’s the stunning, guest couple, Up And Over It, performing their trademark routine, Hands. Imagine an increasingly frantic game of patty-cake played with huge, Scarface piles of cocaine and bottles of Louis Roederer champagne, and you’ll precisely picture this charming, elegantly decadent delight.
But my biggest gripe? Well, in common with fake Viagra, no staying power. Didn’t anyone involved get hip to the fact that having the girls play to, and interact with, a ferociously theatrical live musician on stage would kick this show sky-high? Both divas Marc Almond or Holly Penfield could make Crazy Horse ooze frantic, wet pussy! Instead, we’re left with a show that, at its’ most frenetic, merely slightly dampens one’s panty-liners. Nice tent, though – top marks for Lawrence Of Arabia plushness!
• London’s South Bank at Doon Street, SE1.
• Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesdays at 8.30pm, and twice daily, Thursday – Saturday at 7.00pm and 9.30pm.
• Platinum: £69, Gold £55, Silver £45, Bar Standing £35.
• Runs to 22nd December 2012. Tickets available from www.forevercrazy.co.uk
