Death Row Diva – The Final Account of Crimson Skye

Death Row Diva – The Final Account of Crimson Skye
The Lowry, 13 August 2011

Crimson Skye, the cover girl of Murder Most Foul Quarterly, returns to The Lowry for some down-home high jinks.

Now on Death Row and awaiting execution, she uses her final hours to talk about her early life and later exploits.  How she would play the digging game with her beloved Mamma, what transpired when she met Ed, the love of her life.

In between, Miss Skye sang some popular love songs, giving each one her very own sinister twist.  Of these – and they were all terrific – the pick was probably ‘Always’, which had an especially creepy edge to its final verse and chorus.  It was like Blue Velvet and ‘the candy-coloured sandman’ all over again.

Not all performers can make you simply forget the stage on which they are giving of their best.  For some, some of the time, the stage seems too big or you are aware of extraneous things like protruding cables and the like.  Never once did any of that malarkey arise here, however, because your eyes never left the delightful and dangerously delectable Miss Skye.  Never once, not for a moment.  She was a mesmerising stage presence, lovely in her lethalness.  Her beautiful (and reet purty) smile emitted both warmth and heat.

Crimson Skye’s website is here.

Burlesque!

Burlesque!
The Lowry, 23 July 2011

Very variegated, that’s how I’d describe this particular burlesque show.

The compere, a certain Miss Crimson Skye, looked and acted for all the world as though she’d just stepped from the cover of an American true crime magazine.  Or from a Jim Thompson paperback original, the blurb on the cover reading something like ‘They desired her but she destroyed them, as she clawed her way to the top… man by man.’  Her demeanour vibed Pulp Princess.

Among the other acts there was a magician who was also a dab hand at shadow play, a juggler/knife-catcher/acrobat and a torch singer from Preston, of all places.  She’d been blessed with a voice from heaven as some kind of celestial compensation, you fancied.  There were also a couple of fancy dancers who did two routines a piece.  Of the quartet, I much preferred Miss Bon-Bon’s monkey business routine.  More attitude, less tease.

That leaves Des O’Connor, to my mind one of the classiest burlesque acts around.  His act is a kind of dark music hall, traditional but with a twist.  He plays the ukulele and sings songs about necrophilia, now how English is that?  You might characterise him as a very cheeky chappie indeed.

Burlesque!

Burlesque!
By The Slippery Belle
The Lowry, 19 March 2011

In this show – compered by the regal and risqué Rosie Lugosi, Vampire Queen extraordinaire, complete with maid and swagger stick – there were a quintet of acts, all told.

Coco Malone was the classiest by far: she had a voice of unparalleled power and opulence.  Her performance was a scrumptious slice of heaven.

One could argue (please put it on the agenda at your local philosophy seminar) whether Audacity Chutzpah possesses a tautological stage name; however, the young woman certainly lived up to it.  She combined striptease with humour and her routines also had an involved narrative.  The second one surveyed the history of women’s struggle for equality and made some telling (if perhaps ultimately problematic) political points.  It was instructive, insightful and tantalising in equal measure.

There was fire-eating, contortion and yet more tease on display in the other three acts.

A decadent flower blossomed, and I don’t just mean the compere.