FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.
originally PUBLISHED 04 AUGUST 2010 in the skinny
World weary as I am, and bound over by a restraining order following an article written about burlesque at the last Fringe, I often despair of the cabaret scene. Its collection of cheeky vaudeville routines and enthusiastic women twirling tassels while concentrating as seriously as if they are calibrating nuclear missiles have conspired to subtract the essential sexiness, without adding a necessary satirical spark.
Fortunately, greater minds than my own have been wrestling with this problem- I am thinking about Dusty Limits and Malificent Martini again, and not just in the bad way- and the cesspit of carnality that devours Edinburgh in August has vomited up a show that is equal parts cabaret, sex and stand up comedy, rather like my last date.
Sex Idiot tells a story as true and sad as the time I took a burlesque dancer on a date at the Gallery of Modern Art. Bryony Kimmings caught a STD, and while most people might mention it to a close friend or two, she traced all her sexual partners to warn them, and then made a show about it. I am so asking her out when she comes to the Zoo venues.
"I actually heavily debated the use of the word ‘cabaret’ with my two producers in my press and because I felt like the word was laden with such current meaning and almost negative expectations," Bryony admits. "Actually in its purest sense it fits for me. We decided to try and explain the work as a ‘Cabaret of Confession’ in the raw sense of the word: as a cabaret is an assortment of acts that make up a night of entertainment. I use song, dance, spoken word, physical acts and text so it seemed crazy to avoid the word."
She goes on to point out that the sharp categorization of work by genre is a British preoccupation: in Europe, they just call everything performance anyway. Since that's the same continent that thinks Pina Bausch is ballet, we can safely discount that opinion and chalk this one up to cabaret's ongoing revival, and help it to last long enough for its most promising stars to get a foothold in Light Entertainment broadcast.
Unfortunately, and despite the subject matter, Bryony applies a strict moral code to the show. "I don't use people’s names, I don't divulge information that I don’t have permission for. I hugely respect all the people that have helped me or I have spoken to." This sudden burst of conscience might have helped her before she caught the STD, but like many young people she justifies herself through specious educational flannel. "I don’t think that this subject is something to think of as hugely private. Sadly this is one of the reasons people don’t get STI tests, the taboo. So I think talking about it frankly is actually good."
Personally, I am quite happy for her to have sacrificed her self-respect and sexual health for an hour's entertainment: in the way that the critic's job is to see shows so the public doesn't have to, the artist has a special dispensation to discover the consequences of immorality, and bring back a message. "To say that having an STI will cause problems for people is actually a little off-key in this day and age. One in eight people have had what I had, that’s one person in your office, one member of your immediate family, one person at a bus stop."
Looking at the content of the show, this is far from the smug lectures on sexual health I received under the terms of my probation. She boasts of a song featuring 68 words for female genitalia- i managed 42 off the top of my head, then found 327 more on my favourite website, and assembling a moustache from audience member's pubic hair. That alone ensures my self-help group will be packing the aisles.
"It’s a bit of a marmite show it seems," Bryony continues. "I find this strange as it tackles subjects that are universal, and my shared stories are as mundane, crappy or abhorrent as the next person so I thought that would unite people. I have had some negative reactions from people who are just not willing to go there with me, but that is of course is their prerogative. Some people want something very different than the story of my STI for their evening’s entertainment, which is fair enough!"
Rather like the annual debate about nudity in The Fringe- I am currently running a sweepstake on which show will get the most facile quote from an outraged MSP and largest headline in the Evening News- it is quite mysterious why anyone would be shocked by a show about sex.
Kimmings has found most people are not so easily shocked. "More people are really positive. I have a lot of people come to me after the show and share secrets and stories, or want a good bitch or to tell me they felt liberated by my honesty in some way. That is such a wonderful thing to hear. My favourite comments thus far from audiences have been: “it makes me feel ok about being a dirty sweaty human” and “better than the vagina monologues” both of those comments made me laugh out loud."
Support seems to have come from the unlikeliest places. "In Liverpool the other day a chap came up to me after a show," Kimming remembers. "He was mid fifties, a proper working class Liverpool geezer and he shook my hand dead chuffed and said “You have got some serious balls, I nearly died laughing”, so positive and revved up by the work. It made me realize you can NEVER tell who will come to the work, OR what they will make of it. My mum and her mates love the show, that to me says a lot!"
"I guess a pube moustache is one man's genius and another mans worst nightmare"
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