National Review of Live Art: Wank & Naked People Thursday 18th March edited highlights

As a veteran cabaret performer and raconteur of some years vintage, various chums from the hip and arty burlesque scene were recently encouraging me to "dip a toe" in the "live art genre".  I actually don't have any toes, but that's a story for another day. "Charlie", they said over a brandy at the Art Club, "you'll love it, honest, it's not wanky at all - it's like burlesque but without tassles and the music from the Pink Panther".  This I assumed meant there would be lots of naked flesh on display, and I can do without Henry Mancini at the best of times. So hoorah! Off I toddled.

Arriving at the Arches after a good lunch, negotiating my way round the box office and locating an all day wristband small enough for my slim wrists, I set off to Experience Live Performance Art Up Close and Personal.

I got a bit lost.

The Arches is a confusing place for a small chap like me.  I discovered that a lengthy queue of people standing in a corridor meant a show was about to start somewhere nearby within the next 5 to 60 minutes. I then realised that, if you find a group of people lingering in a corridor, you can join them and start a queue just for the hell of it.  If this happens in a location near where a performance is actually going to happen, that's a lucky coincidence.  If not... it's a wizard wheeze!  And a lovely way to meet ladies.... Anyway, I digress.

Being new to all of this I was - despite my chums' assurances - expecting lots of very wanky performance art mostly featuring naked people covered in body paint. Having an open mind, a secret fondness for statistics and a not-so-secret fondness for naked ladies, I decided to see as much art as possible; assess its actual wankiness; and see how things measured up naked wise. This might be jolly good fun.

I saw twelve "pieces of work" and considered four of them to be pretty much free of gratuitous wankiness. The Forkbeard Fantasy chaps rubbed arty-fartys faces in it with their super show and talking parrot.  A charming room in the dunny showed films of mischievous scamps putting paper clips in toilet rolls, glitter in the sugar dispenser and lit candles into desk drawers. I liked the armchair bound lady with the sore foot, and the angry man hitting holes in his walls with a hammer and making a right mess.  Good for him!

The other eight of the twelve items I saw ticked various wanky boxes: beard strokingly, head noddingly, incomprehensibly, pretentiously, boringly wanky. Superb! That's two thirds wank!  A wank rating of 67%. I was well happy with that.

I was however disappointed that of the twelve items I saw, only one of them featured anyone in the scud.  What's that all about!  More naked people on the bill and I'll be back in a shot!