Shock Treatment...

Last night Stuart and I went to see new musical Shock Treatment at the Kings Head Theatre in London's glitzy Islington.

Written by the same team (and as a sequel) to The Rocky Horror Show the action takes place in Denton, USA - a small American town where the local television station is putting on increasingly bizarre shows. Rocky hero and heroine Brad and Janet are first exposed to husband and wife co-presenters Ralph and Betty Hapschatt as audience members on their game show Marriage Maze. Brad is soon dragged off by brother and sister doctors Cosmo and Nation McKinley and Janet is given a taste of show-biz as station owner Farley Flavors moulds her into a singing diva superstar.

Dances are danced, songs are sung, clothes are shed. All very Richard O'Brien.

The humour is dark and subversive. Four or five of the songs are good. The rest a bit meh. The whole show simply reeks of Rocky though. Which is a good thing!

The Buggles - The Lost Gig...

Last night Paul and I went a charity gig at the SupperClub london in glitzy West London.
And what an amazing night it was. It was the 1980s come alive again.
The Buggles were doing their first ever live gig, a mere 30 years after their début hit single, Video Killed The Radio Star. They were set to perform one of my favourite albums of all time; The Age of Plastic - in full for the first - and quite possibly, only - time ever.  Also on the set list was an assortment of hits from Trevor Horn's back catalogue and some tracks with special guest vocalists. Very special as it turned out.
Up first were OMD performing a couple of songs from their new album History Of Modern and then the wonderful Electricity, Joan Of Arc and Enola Gay. They were then joined on stage by their very own special and lovely guest, Propaganda / Act / Onetwo's Claudia Brücken who performed Duel with them.
After a brief break The Buggles appeared for real and stormed the place. They did the first side of The Age Of Plastic album note perfect. Then we were treated to Alison Moyet joining The Buggles on stage performing the Yazoo classics Only You and Don't Go and an amazing cover of the Grace Jones smash Slave To The Rhythm . Richard O'Brien then joined The Buggles for two songs from Rocky Horror; Super Heroes and The Time Warp. And then we had 10cc's Lol Creme (who was an honorary Buggle for the night) performing I'm Not In Love with The Buggles as backing band.
The Buggles then continued with the second side of the album including both versions of Johnny On The Monorail. Paul and I went mad for Clean, Clean.'Natch.
As an encore the guys had one more special guest that had been kept secret until the last minute... Gary Barlow singing Otis Redding's Hard To Handle.
The Buggles then did a surprising cover of the Nicki Minaj / Will.i.am song Check It Out which itself heavily samples Video Killed The Radio Star - and Trevor Horn was doing the rap! Pop will indeed eat itself.
The gig finished at midnight. Two hours and fifteen minutes of utter bliss. Paul and I were quite beside ourselves. Best. Night. Ever.
Pix to follow.