London.
FASCINATING AIDA: CHEAP FLIGHTS.
Charing Cross Theatre The Arches Villiers Street WC2N 6NL To 7 January 2012.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 4pm (no performance 24, 26, 31 December).
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 0207 478 0170.
www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk
Review: William Russell 7 December.
Thirty Years on and still fascinating.
The glorious Dillie Keane has been taking her three-woman satirical cabaret show round the world for three decades. One would have thought familiarity would breed contempt, but the act remains as fresh as ever, the material, not all of which is new, as hilarious and seditious.
Adele Anderson joined Dillie 27 years ago, and this year they have a new number three, the youthful Sarah Louise Young, who has fitted in seamlessly with the other two, older broads. The Aidas are an institution, a national treasure, and incredibly filthy.
Nothing is sacred. Keane, who looks like a bridge-playing matron from Cork – she actually comes from Portsmouth – plays the piano and tells the dirtiest jokes, while Anderson is splendidly louche and glamorous in a rather old-fashioned way, and Young is simply gorgeous.
Naturally they include their song about Cheap Flights, which has apparently gone fungal – or is it vinyl? – on You Tube. (Actually it is viral.) There is also the one about Dogging – if you don’t know what that is, don’t ask, just call it up online where it too is heading for the stratosphere in terms of hits.
‘Cheap Flights’ effectively skewers Ryanair, although they do make amends in one of their legendary Bulgarian ballads at the very end. This one is about prominent Irish citizens who don’t pay their taxes – guess who is the only one of the Irish filthy rich who does?
There is a lovely ballad about Tesco, some splendid one-liners, and a devastating opening number about companies who dodge paying taxes which results in an acronym, unrepeatable here, which reduced the audience to tears of laughter when they got the joke. Mind you, being the Aidas they spelt it out. This must be London’s best Christmas show, though perhaps not for the whole family.
Cast: Dillie Keane, Adele Anderson, Sarah Louise Young.
Director/Choreographer: Spencer Solomon.
Lighting: Mike Robertson.
Sound: Marc Cohen.
2011-12-07 23:53:01
