Lorna Irvine reviews this week's A Play, a Pie and a Pint production.
Don’t expect any proper nuanced debate on the nature of exploitation, commerce or feminism in this clichéd farce.
Morag Fullarton’s play, based on the Scottish executive’s investigations into the practices of running lap dancing clubs, trades entirely in stereotypes—the tart with a heart, blowsy anti-filth campaigner in sensible shoes, camp male fan-dancer and thuggish bouncer.
Jean (a likeable Hanna Stanbridge) is a student putting herself through uni (of course) as a lap-dancer: Destiny Honeybaps (no, really)—this Carry On pseudonym sets the tone.
Elspeth (Lindy Whiteford), the frumpy campaigner who purports to be looking after her interests by investigating how close the punters can stand, is of course anti-nudity, in any form.
And so, on and on, the clichés persist, although the young leads, Stanbridge and a leggy, engaging Ben Clifford as alter-ego Lexi, display great comic timing in their routines: twerking Eliza Doolittle and reverse striptease into kilt and Scotland cap, respectively.
Yet, the message is maddeningly over-simplified. Jean is a saintly figure, caring for her father (Steven McNicol) who has had a stroke (deeply offensive ‘comedy’ here- effectively inviting the audience to laugh at his stutter) and anyone opposed to lap dancing, as with the figure of fun Elspeth, is just an old repressed battle-axe who hates sex.
The setting too is confused- Jean, who says she is a lap-dancer, says ‘Pom- Pom’ is a Burlesque club, as does her male counterpart Alexander/Lexi. Yet Burlesque and lap dancing are two entirely different things- the former springs from a tradition of vaudevillian theatre; the latter, full stripping for the sake of sexual stimulation and economic necessity (although recent findings suggest they leave the clubs having earned very little—see the Channel 4 documentary Strippers for confirmation of this).
This would be bad enough, but the most irritating thing about today’s play, apart from its confused message, childish attitude and one-sidedness, was the cat-calling for flesh from certain idiots in the audience. That is the kind of authenticity we can do well without.
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