On Friday Christine and I went to The Wardrobe in Leeds to see Frisky & Mannish – a cabaret act who parody popular music. We’ve seen them before in September 2012 when they came to Bradford – we stopped back after the gig for the above photo. Which, incidentally, was one of the last photos taken on my iPhone 4 before I replaced it with my current phone.
Anyhow, as we enjoyed ourselves so much last time, we made a point of booking tickets for their gig in Leeds. This was for their new show, ‘#justtoomuch’, which was a departure from their previous shows. Whereas in the past they have focussed on ‘educating’ people about pop music, this show was about celebrity excess and the inevitable fall into depression and drug abuse – see Amy Winehouse, Miley Cirus et al.
Which sounds depressing but it’s put together in a great way. 2/3rds of the show was made up of new material, including some topical jibes at Bob Geldof, ballet dancing and made-up letters from Sinead O’Connor.
The rest was set aside for their greatest hits – nursery rhymes set to the tune of ‘Sound of the Underground’ by Girls Aloud (“The wheels on the bus go round/The wheels on the bus go round and round…”), ‘Beep’ by the Pussycat Dolls in the style of a Blackpool end of the peer variety act, and various love songs with creepy undertones sung in a psychotic way.
Frisky & Mannish have a very loyal fan base – Frisky asked the crowd who had been to one of their gigs before and more than half had – but it’s easy to see why people keep on coming back. F&M’s current tour has a few more nights to go, so if they’re in your area I’d thoroughly recommend taking the time to see them. If you remain unconvinced, their previous three shows are free to watch on YouTube, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign.