As an opener for the Birds Eye View/Warp X Last Laugh Comedy Night, Cathy Snelling’s Susie couldn’t be more appropriate. It’s all opening – namely a hungry vagina that gobbles rings, jelly and mice belonging to an imaginary town of disgruntled villagers (“This has to be the most selfish vagina we’ve ever met!”).
They exist in the mind of Susie, who is sat in her kitchen masturbating to the scenario. Susie’s a puppet so we’re treated to lots and lots of shots of glistening red felt, filmed both inside and outside of her, um, plot device. If this is where Snelling’s taking Oliver Postgate‘s legacy, we’re happy to go along for the (her?) ride.
Sarah Baker’s Studs is based on Jackie Collins’s 1969 novel, which spawned a dubious feature film. Baker relocates the dated setting – an ageing lothario talks passionately about an affair he had with a younger woman, while the same woman dismisses him as a has-been – into the champagne-swigging ’80s set.
The locations – a Greco-Roman Hollywood mansion, a swimming pool lit with purple lights and a neon-lit dressing room – and costumes are perfect. All look cheap, over-priced and reflect suitably horribly on the characters.
“I dress carefully. Expensive smells and jewellery,” says Tony, the fading lover-man. But, as his fickle former lover says: “What will happen when his hard body and curly hair are gone?”
A Short Collection Of Hilary Flamingo’s Dream Vocations is a Sophie Muller-inspired romp through the daydreams of a bored cake factory worker. Hilary’s sweet escape sees her spending her days eating cupcakes and letting the different colours and flavours take her into a variety of fantasy worlds. A chocolate-frosted cake warps into a bed covered with furs, a vanilla sponge sees Hilary dressed in a huge yellow wig and matching underwear. And so on. And so on. It’s well-edited, colourful, highly stylised stuff – akin to watching a Gwen Stefani video and about as meaningful.
Finally, Jacqueline White’s Junglophilia owes more than a nod, wink and an awkward glance to camera to Ricky Gervais and Christopher Guest. ‘Junglophilia’ is fictional ’80s pop act Val Hallah’s hit-in-waiting, a virulent rage against globalisation that would storm WOMAD 1982 … if the security staff would let her through the gate (“Bloody hippies. They’re so bureaucratic!”).
Writer and star Alice Lowe has Gervais’ gift for nailing pomposity and self-delusion in the never-could-be-famous, but it’s Gervais’ gift, and this kind of comedy doesn’t cause the squirms of delighted embarrassment it once did. It’s a clever piece that says a lot about the pretensions of today’s pop stars but, like those stars, it’s not as clever or significant as it thinks it is.
