Burlesque has seen a healthy revival in recent years, with big productions, movies and big stars within the genre. So I was curious to see what twist the edgy, alternative models from SuicideGirls would bring to the art of burlesque. SuicideGirls is a website that features pin-up photos and profiles of alternative female models, often heavily tattooed, so you’d expect they’d have a very modern and unique interpretation on this age-old art form.
After a raunchy but slightly shambolic warm up act it’s 9pm when the SuicideGirls Blackheart Burlesque show itself gets off to a promising start. The girls look great and have plenty of confidence and attitude on stage, yet always with a glint in their eye that says “we’re just having a little fun”. Indeed the show is clearly as interested in appealing to the ladies in the crowd as it is to the men, maybe even more so. The soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”, while maybe a little obvious, fits perfectly with the edgy, alternative look that SG is renowned for. The dancing is well synchronised and builds up the teasing nicely before our first glimpse of tattooed flesh. But we don’t need to wait long before the bras are flying in every direction and the breasts are on display, with tape to cover their nipples.
The cosplay theme is repeated throughout the evening, with Lara Croft being one of the first characters to bring all guns blazing to the front rows. But it’s not long before things take a quick turn into something far more cheesy. Doing “The Timewarp” is about as far from alternative and edgy as it’s possible to get. The show is quickly in danger of losing the uniqueness we hope for from SG and, when the girls follow it up re-enacting Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” routine, things begin to feel more like a holiday park show than a modern take on burlesque.
Luckily things do pick up again fairly quickly. M.I.A’s “Bad Girls” gets the soundtrack back into the realms of cool and credible while the dance routines, although always a little sloppy, feel like they’ve been thought out to fit the music rather than copied from a YouTube video. They’re sexy, not silly, yet still with a sense of cheekiness that is a mainstay of burlesque.
Our hostess does a great job of encouraging the crowd to get involved too, inviting girls up on stage to sass it up for themselves before offering a winner the somewhat underwhelming prize of a year’s subscription to SuicideGirls.com. When she begins to sing, which she does just twice in the show, my immediate reaction was to cringe before acknowledging she actually has a very impressive voice.
Another area the show fell short were the brief interludes between performances. As the stage was cleared of props, furniture and discarded clothing there was complete silence as we waited. It felt jarring, killing the mood and making things feel somewhat amateurish.
Fight Club makes an appearance. A solo performance as one Suicide Girl fights her invisible foe while removing clothing (obviously). Orange Is The New Black makes for a fun segment of girl-on-girl action that’s always soft-core and far from pornographic. A timely 50 Shades Of Grey routine works surprisingly well, accompanied by The Weeknd’s “Earned It”, straight from the movie soundtrack.
Indeed, for the latter half of the show, the music is right on cue. Grimes, Jason Barnett and Major Lazer all get pumped from the speakers as the girls throw shapes, and bras, up on the stage. The teasing element begins to get a little questionable after we’ve seen the same girls naked 5 or 6 times but I guess there’s only so many ways to make taking your clothes off interesting!
One highlight of the show is actually when a lucky young man is encouraged up on stage, sat in a chair and told to study. As he calmly begins to read, our hostess begins to dance around him, removing her clothes, before giving the distracted guy a lapdance as the audience roars its approval. It’s a moment that puts a smile on everyone’s face, not least our victim.
The big finale is an homage to the ultimate geek movie – Star Wars. Unfortunately, even half naked Suicide Girls become severely less sexy with a Stormtrooper mask on their head! It veers back into the realms of silliness and doesn’t really work on any level. But maybe that’s just my opinion.
All in all, SuicideGirls Blackheart Burlesque is a night of fun, cheekiness and hot girls with plenty of SG attitude on full show. It’s not to be taken seriously and, despite its flaws, it gave everyone at La Tulipe a great Monday night out.
Review & photos – Steve Gerrard
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