While I was in London, I got taken out to see a show in the West End (as one does).
This particular show was in what amounted to a cellar just off Leicester Square. When we got there, the only indication that there was a theatre there was the box office and a set of stairs leading down. The Reduced Shakespeare Company were doing a show in one of the rooms, but we were going to see Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens.
It was a tiny venue, which meant that the actors were right there amongst the audience - we had to cross the stage to get to our seats, and it was set out like a disco.
Before the main action, the stage was taken by the Martini Encounter, described as "Permanently shaken. Occasionally stirred". They're a ukelele and close harmony singing trio, who lull you into a false sense of security with 1930s standards and then sing something very rude in the same style. Which was very funny.
Then the mics were whisked away, and we were in Saucy Jack's seedy disco, where artistes are being murdered. The only clue is a slingback sandal found with each victim. The Space Vixens arrive to investigate (with the power of Disco) - and one of them has a Past with Saucy Jack. Another of them has a sweet romance with Sammy Sax, the saxophone player who has ambitions to leave Saucy Jacks, and the third Space Vixen falls for a raunchy bubblewrap smuggler. Watching from the sidelines is a German professor who wants to get more than drinks from Saucy Jack's kilted barman, and a waitress (played by a man) who longs to be a Space Vixen herself.
Music - dancing - glitter boots! A Pantomime villain to boo! Some of the people sitting at the end of the stage obviously knew all the songs and were having a great time - and I came out singing "I Want to be a Space Vixen" and "Glitter Boots Saved My Life".
The Space Vixens
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