Burlesque duo turn air blue at royal sports club
WITH its stately clubhouse set in 42 acres on the banks of the Thames, the Hurlingham club in Fulham — where the Duchess of Cambridge takes Prince George for tennis lessons — would seem invulnerable to the coarseness of the outside world.
But, I hear, that illusion was shattered at a black-tie party last weekend, when the evening’s entertainment left guests aghast.
There was no inkling of anything untoward as they had drinks and then dinner, says one diner. ‘Hurlingham looked beautiful,’ he adds, ‘like a scene from the Roaring Twenties.’
The sight of the cabaret — a female duo, Louise Innes and Charlie Bicknell, described by one guest as ‘a burlesque cabaret’ — appeared to promise further pleasures, albeit in a slightly different key. ‘Louise Innes is beautiful and has a beautiful voice, too. Charlie reminded me of the MC in Cabaret — only more flexible.’
What followed made dinner rather less digestible, however. ‘There was something about well-trimmed topiary,’ adds the diner, who explains that certain songs went into intimate detail about female anatomy, with one graphically rhyming Benedict
Cumberbatch’s name. Even the most broad-minded guests were stunned. ‘We looked at each other wondering what to say.’
Innes, a mezzo soprano who made her Covent Garden debut in 2010, declines to comment. Understandably, perhaps: in addition to her cabaret act, she teaches at Wells Cathedral School and Jeffrey Archer’s alma mater, Wellington School, in Somerset.
But Bicknell is unabashed, calling the party ‘a celebration of growing older’. Of Cumberbatch, she says: ‘I extol his theatrical successes in the build up to that punchline. In cabaret it’s important to elicit a gasp on occasion.’
And they succeeded. A guest tells me: ‘It scored at least a million points for the most unwoke show since Jerry Springer: The Opera.’