Before giving an answer, I would ask you to picture the following scene. I am marching along George Street, into the second of a two day hangover, and accidentally wearing jeans that have PVA glue on them (from making William Wallace at work). Said jeans are also too big, but perversely too short. Tyra Banks would take a pure eppy if she could see me.
I am not wearing makeup, except possible remnants of yesterday's eyeliner not properly removed, and my hair is a fetching bouffant on account of being required to dry naturally in my haste to get out of the house this morning. I am, if anything, the antithesis of burlesque - unsexy, unglamorous, uncorsetted. Well, I have the grotesque parody of womanhood part covered, which in 18th century terms means I'm doing OK. But this is 2010! The art has evolved and moved on! It's now striptease, essentially, and nobody needs that from a frump in gluey trousers.
However, someone on the street saw this vision and thought, 'yes, she'll come to a burlesque act,' and flyered me accordingly. But not just normal burlesque, oh no. Burlesque with a CIRCUS THEME. What does that even involve? Clowns in nipple tassels? A performing seal in thigh high boots?
The Fringe website describes it, somewhat cryptically, thus: "ringmistress and cabaret star Tempest Rose welcomes you to a circus of the Seven Deadly Sins; introducing a stunning array of daring and dazzling new interpretations of classic burlesque, vaudeville and circus routines."
Which doesn't give a lot away, but lets pick it apart a bit and see what we can see.
I understand vaudeville to mean variety, which is straightforward - there are lots of girls on the flyer; they presumably have a variety of talents. By which I may mean they have a variety of differently shaped boobs. But still, that makes every act slightly different.
It seems plausible that 'circus routines' in this context is more likely to mean acrobatics and contortion than custard pies or chucking a confetti over one of the dads having pretended it was a bucket of water. I don't know which has more artistic merit though. It's a tough one to call.
As to dazzling new interpretations of classic burlesque... Well. This is the flyer. Are you dazzled?
Exactly.
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