Image credit: Lee Baxter
AVIVA STUDIOS
Still Got It…!? is the cabaret show from David Hoyle and is the culmination of his three week residency at Factory International. There may be no obvious sign of a pier or chips and candyfloss but this production has as much a rich vein of darkly sweet seaside humour as a stick of Blackpool rock. Hoyle is the consummate performer and seems as at home on the vast stage in The Hall as in a more typically intimate cabaret venue. He delivers a performance that is warm, witty, pithy and droll. There’s something quite beautiful and incredibly touching to see this avant-garde performer who has so openly documented his own personal struggles taking to this packed auditorium to ask Still Got It…!?
Hoyle is joined on stage by a range of cabaret artists and although they are all undoubtedly talented there is also a strong sense of Hoyle using this opportunity in a 1600 capacity auditorium to celebrate friendships he has made on his own creative journey. Glitterbomb Dancers are a cabaret dance group produced by Joseph Mercier are as hi energy as they are big on sequins, glitter and dark and twisty charm. Their numbers are dotted through the show and include a dystopian ballet and a pointed and dark allusion to the Pan’s People dancers of Top of the Pops and a time when we switched on to Gary Glitter and Jimmy Saville.
Image credit: Lee Baxter
Thom Shaw otherwise known as Pam Lustgarden joins Hoyle on stage to discuss jam making in the W.I. as well as well as her well documented love of poetry and building improvised incendiary devices. Her act includes poetry by John Cooper Clarke and a unique take on Pull My Daisy by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassidy. The best element however is a sly epitaph for Hoyle when he supposedly dies from Empathy.
There are burlesque performances that include Lilly Snapdragon who performs in a child’s paddling pool and delivers an act that may destroy or increase the traditional Mancunion fondness for the great British fry up depending on your fondness for blending food and sex in a particularly graphic manner!! Symoné whirls across the stage on rollerskates using hulahoops while the Alternative Miss Ireland Veda Lady delivers a powerhouse performance involving a shopping trolley and later educates the audience about PrEP and her podcast Poz Vibe.
Some of these performances translate better than others unto such a large stage however that becomes increasingly irrelevant as Hoyle himself wields his laconic charm and stage majesty across proceedings. The huge audience is always on his side and revelling in seeing one of their own up on that stage delivering songs and reverie in his unique style. The interactive quiz show Still Got It, Never Had It, Lost It Years Ago has the audience riotously involved as Hoyle strides across the stage discussing rats in his Longsight abode, a belief in Capitalist reality and his childhood stamp collection. There truly is a broad church in the house tonight and Hoyle is the perfect High priest. He may wonder aloud how a lot of us are still alive…or ask himself How did I get away with that? The answer from the crowd to the big question of the night…David Hoyle,Still Got It…!? A resounding YES!!!
Live Art Alive 