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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

Starmen: Briefs Close Encounters @LeicesterSqXmas

Circus performers often seem out of this world. This Christmas The Briefs Factory, lands at the Leicester Square Spiegeltent. Briefs Factor is an all-male burlesque (or as they call it boylesque) group who use circus, drag and dance to show us a good time. The premise is they’re time-travelling aliens offering a message a hope and cheap thrills. And they don’t disappoint for a moment.

With a pulsating soundtrack from music director Busty Beatz mixing disco, electronic and dance, this show never lets up. And when the entire cast come together this show is both breathtaking and breathless with it’s audacious spectacle and energy. It’s like watching a Vegas show up close.

Holding the show together is host, emcee and artistic Fez Fa’anana. Even setting the ground rules for the night (no phones, no bad manners, no dramaturg) he’s hilarious. Then there are the performers. Mark “Captain Kidd” Winmill delivers both a beautiful aerial display and a slightly disturbing bearded lady drag act.

Thomas Worrell has a spectacular routine spinning around in a giant bird cage. Brett Rosengreen thrills with his athletic dancing. Then there’s Harry Clayton-Wright as a bearded Farrah-Fawcett damsel in distress.

Dale Woodbridge-Brown has a quieter and more surreal moment as a time-hopping rabbit boy-clown.

There’s also a regular feature the Briefs boys run, which is a raffle in which the winner gets a special treatment from one of them. On press night it was Louis Bigg’s turn to give this eager winner a slightly naughty blow dry.

Often naughty, sometimes filthy but always delivered with incredible style and energy. You don’t have to be on a hen night to enjoy what is one of the best shows to see this Christmas. Briefs Close Encounters is at the Leicester Square Spiegeltent through to 3 January. They also are running a more family-oriented variety show called Brat Kids Carnival on various matinee dates up to 30 December. And if you like your entertainment extra filthy there’s a late night show called Club Briefs which runs late nights on weekends up to 30 December. A show that grabs you by the baubles indeed.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photos by Kate Pardey

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