overyourhead

Kiki and Herb - Losers In Love...
It was a night at the theatre last night for me, Mark, Paul, David, Simon, Dawn, Joanna and Martin. Straight from their sell-out success at America's most prestigious venue, Carnegie Hall and a UK tour with the Scissor Sisters, New York legends Kiki and Herb were back in London doing what they do best.

To say Kiki and Herb is a drag show is like calling the Pacific a puddle. It's a tour de force. A musical act that calls on not only great songs (the silent audience guessing game is one of the main features) but inspired stand-up comedy and a big dig in the ribs of the safe cabaret/lounge singer circuit. It is Chanson with balls. Always first class showmanship.

And last night show was no exception. They tugged at the heart strings of the hardiest soul with a Valentines spectacular of epic proportions. Many of the routines we'd seen before, the exception perhaps being Mylo's "Destroy Rock And Roll". But as ever it was the delivery that amazed. Kiki (the oh so talented Justin Bond) is one of the best stage drunks you're likely to see.

Her Lon Chaney face is scarred with mascara, her voice a mixture of Tom Waits and Ethel Merman, with more than a little Judy Garland in her last days. The high point for me was when Kiki relates calling in a bomb threat at a Rolling Stones aftershow party attended by Oasis claiming, "This is Charlotte Rampling On The Line! / Garden of the Finzi-Continis." Herb (played by the oh so handsome Kenny Mellman), for his part, croons "Champagne Supernova" underneath. Class.