The Ex Granny Wrangler

13 July 2007

Teacher, Teacher!

One of the many advantages of living in the UK, alongside Waitrose home delivery (O-ka-O-ka-DO) and stab-wound-free public transport (except in Tooting where bloodstained shirts are all the rage this season), is the plethora of musicals and shows which ooze from every street corner. A cultural injection just waiting for you to excitedly present a pale cheek. And the other night, I did just that. And in fact, I wasn’t the only one.

Showing in a theatre in the heart of Camden, and described as “Cirque du Soleil without the Disney and disinfectant”, we, being the intelligent individuals we are, expected something a little different - astounding acrobatics but without all the bright costumes, which, in hindsight, is pretty much what we got.

Imagine if you will, the horror that befell Yours Truly as the house lights dimmed to the painful hack-sawing of a perfectly decent cello by a rather unsavoury looking character, and a sudden glaring spotlight revealed our first acrobat ambling across the dingy insipid little stage. Naked. Like the chef. Only nakeder and ten times hairier. And as this was a woman, I was a more than a little disturbed.
Inching over to a laundry basket, she proceeded to pick out pair after pair of large ‘granny pants’ (so *that’s* why I went) only to hold them to her nose and inhale deeply in a quest to find a relatively suitable and odourless pair. This took so long I nearly whipped my own off and hurled them on stage in an effort to cover her up, but I think red with polka dots would have been a tad gaudy for her.
Poen finally put away, but mammarys all a-flap, she took to the trapeze as the audience gazed up in horror and I scrabbled for the program to see if we were watching indeed ‘Acrobat’ or actually a production of ‘Milkshake’.

As winter follows autumn, so too does penis follow poen and it was only a matter of moments before a man appeared on roller skates, his various appendages flying willy-nilly (ahem), taking great delight in shaking them and wiggling them with obscene pelvic thrusts as he roared around the stage, before starting to extract silk scarves from his bung-hole like Sodom The Magnificent. When he too took to the high ropes, I shrieked, squirmed and closed my eyes, convinced I was about to witness the world’s first ‘castration by rope burn’ incident. In what was an hour of sheer horror, I sat agape as the ‘meaningful’ and ‘arty’ acrobatic display played out its course, with only one question on my mind: are the ‘2 veg’ all that huge??

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh come on GW, can't you recognise true art when you see it? This piece was obviously a tribute to loss,* a [startling] and revelatory [very] commentary on the overall human condition
Any philistine will tell you that :)

*of clothes, and good taste, dinity and a PG13 rating, apparently.
** Au naturale, and a bit too full frontal for comfort, apparently.

Anonymous said...

Probably a bit swollen from being clouted on the ropes during rehearsal. I hate it when that happens.

crayola dude said...

It's been a couple days since you made me lol, but by god that one made me giggle! Holy shit...

fuzzy logic said...

Brings new meaning to the expression 'dicking around'

Anonymous said...

Wow. I imagine gave you a whole new perspective. On things.

Anonymous said...

reminds me of a show I once went to, "the puppetry of the penis"... oy vey as they say back in shanghai

The xGW said...

parenthesis: listen, given the size of his fresh produce the man himself was a philistine. doesn't say much huh?

kyk: i bet you say that to al... ok nevermind.

ekke: ...cometh from sacred bovines.

fuzz: hahahahaaaa!

mrs b: see above.

infini: hang on, i've seen a book on that. dammit, all those years of successful repression and you bring it *aaaaall* back up.

Anonymous said...

I too have seen the Aussie genital origami. I too have tried to suppress it. I too have failed.

Maybe these people took the whole "let it all hang out" advice of their director a little too literally?

PS People in the office are staring at me. There is not much cause for laughter today. And yet, here I am, gaffawing. Thanks!

Revolving Credit said...

So Amsterdams red-light district sex shows went on a roadtrip to London.

Don't ya so love roadtrips??

Anonymous said...

Sounds like he really got into the swing of things.

The xGW said...

dolc: does 'gaffawing' mean throwing up in your mouth?

revo: luckily we did not witness any penetration although i did fear for a particular pole's virginty at one point during the evening.

martin: another pun in the oven? [insert pregnant pause] oh god, will this week never end?

Anonymous said...

bringing it *all* back up was exactly how I felt in the audience too, xgw, when I watched them do *that* with *those*

Anonymous said...

"martin: another pun in the oven? [insert pregnant pause] oh god, will this week never end?"

well, it *is* friday the 13th.... or is that nightmare on elm street I'm thinking of?

The xGW said...

infini: both dude, both.

Betenoir said...

Well,I guess I called it: Meaningful and Arty. I think Salacious and Seedy might have been preferable, no?

was there at least enough alcohol to make it Bearable?

lordwiggly said...

These guys run around nekkid on a stage and its art. I hang upside down from a tree nekkid and an onlooker calls the cops. Apparently I shouldve charged them twenty quid each.

Insane Insomniac said...

And the Gigantic poster of a naked acrobat in front of the entrance didn't drop a hint??

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The xGW said...

betenoir: witblitz was unfortunately not available at the time of the incident.

wiggles: blood rushing to your head, eh?

insano: yes, we were a little concerned as we looked up but thought, nah, it can't be all that bad. have you seen it yet?

crayola dude said...

So I was thinking, you think Ugly Nekkid Guy actually does two shows a day, but the first one involves him sticking the silken scarves up his bum, then pulling them out in the second one?

I mean, it would save time prepping, and give you the opportunity to be 'arty' twice in one day...

The xGW said...

ekke, honey, your obsession with silk scarves and sphincters does concern me somewhat, i'm not going to lie to you.

crayola dude said...

Obsession? pffffffffffft.

You do one trick at a party, and suddenly it's an 'obsession'. Sheeesh.

lordwiggly said...

I reckon those scarves mustve been in a tube or something. Otherwise they wouldve come out brown, right?

Anonymous said...

I haven't. saving my pennies to go watch Motion City Soundtrack and Wicked!

crayola dude said...

Oh suuuuure. Start a bridge-counting competition and stop writing completely.

Now there's a good idea...
:(