Marking her fringe debut with a one-woman show that's part stand-up, part cabaret and part theatre, Denise Van Outen pays tribute to golden-haired goddesses from a personal perspective.
Van Outen explores why each bombshell means so much to her, through a retrospective storytelling of her life, including projections of personal photographs, sharing her ups and downs along with the discovery of each of her selected idols and treats us to a taster of their best known and loved songs.
Accompanied by musician Mike Moran (who we were informed several times has been in the business for thirty six years), the Essex-born star begins silhouetted singing Mae West, before emerging into a spotlight in a devilishly delicious red outfit.
What starts well soon deflates as the format of the show never really finds its feet and feels like what it effectively is, a load of Blonde jokes and statistics crammed in between songs.
Writer Jackie Clune has failed to write a show with an overriding tone for the evening, beginning as a good humoured exploration of all things blonde that turns into a quasi-serious look at Van Outen's career and love life, creating a lack of audience bonding with many needing to be coaxed into participation and karaoke-esque renditions.
The mish-mash approach of the evening seemed to leave the audience confused as it varied between fun farce and strange moments of pathos that did not seem to sit well: the audience was unsure whether to laugh, therefore opted for silence.
The most odd of the evening was Van Outen's maternal ode to Britney, comparing their broken hearts, which included flashing a picture of the gurning pop princess on screen during a rendition of ‘Everytime'. While Van Outen sang with emotion there were stifled laughs echoing round the puzzled auditorium.
Van Outen's voice is on form and is a joy to listen to as she belts out numbers by Kylie, Madonna, Monroe, and the ultimate blonde, Dolly Parton. However the musical numbers were often interrupted by unnecessary and often flat dalliances with audience members when it would be preferable to deliver the tunes in their entirety then get down to the business of audience inclusion.
It's unfortunate the format doesn't work because Van Outen is a lovely, bubbly persona with great presence and deserves praise for her sexy, bluesy renditions of the pop classics chosen.
Times: 10-31 August (not 11, 18, 25 Aug), 5.50pm
© Lindsay Corr, August 2009