Rude, crude and taking no prisoners, Puppet Burlesque was the flagship show in the inaugural International Puppet Carnival’s After Dark program. Every night of the carnival, puppets took over Federation Square’s BMW Edge for some adult orientated entertainment.
Before the burlesque show, the bar was open for us to whet our whistles. As we partook in a beverage, puppets such as Randy and Fluffi-Feline mingled with the patrons, inviting interaction with them as if they were the hosts of the party. These puppets even treated the building crowd to a spot of stand up. On this night Fluffi performed a spot reminiscent of an R rated Lamb Chop as she took every opportunity to hit on male audience members, even serenading several with a song. After this warm up, we were invited to make a last minute drink purchase and take a seat for the main event.
After entertaining audiences of children during the day, this show was the opportunity for the carnival’s puppeteers to be as crude and politically incorrect as they wanted. As the MC for the evening, Russell Fletcher as Roger the drunk thespian, pondered “Burlesque is basically theatre with more swearing”.
Quite a line up of puppet-centric acts graced the stage. “Roger” held the show together as the many stagehands scurried about setting up the often complicated staging for the puppet performers. A house band led by Derek Rowe provided much of the musical accompaniment for the evening.
Dressed in a blue singlet and jeans with a cigarette in hand, Ken Koala was up first. In true bogan fashion, Ken sang an amusing song entitled “I’m not a f&*#@n’ bear”. He later returned with a song about how a duck became the star of the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony.
Next was It’s Vegas on a String! performed by Murray Raine, which featured marionettes of famous singers that “sang” along to backing tracks. We saw Luciano Pavarotti (who’s balloon head popped while reaching a high note), Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones (with lots of hip swiveling and groin thrusting), Tina Turner (and her rabid wig) and Madonna (pointy cone bra and all). The act was wrapped up with a koala on a trapeze that was amazing to watch.
From the minds of the Sydney company ERTH, a giant sheep shearer descended down the steep stairs from the rear of the theatre to a nervous giant sheep on the stage. These animal liaisons even extended to the MC when “Roger” was seduced by a puppet Rhino.
The star of The Puppet Peepshow (a life size puppet with an exaggerated booty) appeared on the stage on a curtained four poster bed and proceeded to bump, grind and pose explicitly. In the midst of this her Merkin fell off, as did her nipples. From the resultant hole she began pulling a long silk from her breast and from out of her chest cavity, a small model boat emerged. A change in stage lighting turned the silk to a blue colour and the boat sailed on this “ocean”. This act was so bizzare that “Roger” verbalized the thought going through everyone’s mind, “What the hell was that?”
Randy the puppet comedian took to the stage next and told plenty of jokes of questionable taste. Just like his appearance at The Wrong Night last year, he suffered a wardrobe malfunction (with his hat and wig) and had the audience laughing up a storm.
The house band entertained the crowd with a puppet related song “She comes with strings attached” before we encountered the final act of the evening courtesy of The Snuff Puppets. Taking the stage was a farmer and four cows that danced around accompanied by an alien jumping around amongst the audience. The farmer soon stripped off his clothes to reveal a butcher’s apron and proceeded to slaughter the cows. The entrails of the cows wriggled from the carcasses and the naked farmer rolled around on top of the organs. He even fell from the stage and got up close and personal with several audience members. What a finale!
Puppet Burlesque was a fantastic and hilarious showcase of puppetry that showed that puppets were not just the domain of kid’s entertainment.