Review – Naked Girls Reading in The Garden
When the silk gowns tumble to the floor, you can practically see thought bubbles with “They’re really nekkid!!11!!” pop up above everybody’s heads. The performers, embodying four beautiful variations on the female form, are disarmingly frank about the fact that they happen to be in their birthday suits, and joke about cold weather in a way that puts the crowd at ease. Panel-style, they proudly settle in armchairs and cross their legs. The stage is raised above audience-level – a reminder of who is in charge. It’s all sweetness and fun until a camera is spotted and the vibe suddenly becomes reminiscent of teachers at a school assembly: first time they say ‘no cameras’ it is with a smile, but after that you’d damn well better put the camera away.
The show is produced by burlesque performers Frankie Valentine and Vesper White and the panel of naked readers varies throughout the Fringe season. While the ladies offer audiences plenty to admire, do not expect them to gyrate for your entertainment. Centre stage is instead given to eight trashy, fun and/or romantic texts – a range that includes celebrity biographies, Marquis de Sade, Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk. Lovers of smut will find plenty to snigger at in the prose itself, while lovers of breasts (and who isn’t?) will enjoy a more visual variation on book club night.
The ladies bring the pieces to life with dramatic flair, and it is hard not to be swept up in the prose. A strength of the show is the humour and interaction on stage; the girls don’t hesitate to interrupt each other or poke fun at the more graphic passages. Each text is performed by an individual, a format that showcases the ladies’ talents for switching voices and accents. Cara Brown’s comical rendition of a Hollywood film-set romance was a particular highlight that left everybody giggling.
Put a promise of boobies in your show title, and you have to expect that not every attendee will be a book-readin’ type. The ladies gave a tolerant if slightly condescending treatment to those audience members who were, how shall we say, more inclined to drool. Whatever your reasons for attending the show, these smart, literate ladies may just leave you aroused by the beauty of the written word.
