Step up Darlings is….well it’s…..how can I best describe it….the three women…..you see they….  OK, it’s not that baffling but it is different, in your face and hard to sum up.

It’s a striptease circus/freak show – nails hammered up noses, trapeze, erotic semi-naked dancing, contortions, fire eating, you get the picture.  Well, perhaps it becomes a little clearer you hear bout the nipple tassels? 

It’s not just a night out for the boys, though they were clearly and vocally appreciative.  It wasn’t shocking despite trying very hard to be.  It takes a lot to shock someone who’s just watch oral sex in a public toilet cubicle (see Engaged review). 

Tanya Drewery, Eva S. McMahon and Nyree Camden are supple (if not subtle) performers, who are without question born to perform.  None of what they do is particularly new but the way they’ve brought it together shows flair and guts.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Billed as "Sideshow Burlesque as only Nana would remember it", Step Up Darlings, it’s ten-in-one exhumes ancient acts of exotica for our amazed delectation – except if you’ve happened across them in Heavenly Burlesque shows or on Queens Wharf or as part of various festive occasions, not all of it will be new, except the intimacy of BATS does give thei acts a different feel.

And The Magenta Diamond (Tanya Drewery), Eva Strangelove (Eva. S McMahon) and Miss Strawberry Siren (Nyree Camden) have certainly polished up their acts.

Whip cracking, a sexy feather fan dance, a nose impaled with nails and skewers, aerial hoop contortions and gyrations, a colourful jelly-fish-cum-beach-bather-tent sequence, a stupendous balancing act, a nasty dance sequence with a dummy, a bloody encounter with a chicken and a spectacular hula-hoop finale Morocco-style … It’s a feast of skills. 

Sometimes the dance interludes get a bit aimless and repetitive but that might be part of the strategy, to make the truly skilled bits look even better. And when this gets done in an intimate theatre, I can’t help wondering how it might develop with more defined and complex characters and inter-relationships that tell something of a story as the show progresses.

The sound levels were way out of wack on opening night, obliterating such popular standards as ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s best Friend’.  Logan Jeffs does a good job of introducing the shows as El Diablo and his singing sequence is fine but the final bit where he tries to introduce the cast, crew (Shannon Drewery ) and band (Ross Walker, Ben King & Tristan) was drowned by amplified noise.

They got through with a hugely supportive audience on opening, some of the problems are easily fixed and I’d like to think they’ll keep on developing in ways that will make them a must-see on the Fringe and civic festival circuits.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer