Adorable Ferret

Miss Eve Ferret is a survivor from a different era - and an "adorable" entertainer (as Madam Arcati kept saying after we went to see her on stage at the Arts Theatre in Soho last night)!

Formerly one half of the house cabaret act Biddie and Eve at the legendary and formative New Romantic club The Blitz, Miss Ferret's penchant for multiple-layered clothing and big hair, feathers, fouff and faff influenced many of the outrageous costumes of the erstwhile punters at that venue. Punters at the time included Siouxsie Sioux, Haysi Fantayzee, Isabella Blow, Stephen Jones, Spandau Ballet, members of Hot Gossip, Toyah, Gilbert and George, Pete Burns, Marilyn, Princess Julia, Philip Sallon and Martin Degville. Steve Strange and Rusty Egan ruled the roost; Mario Testino was behind the bar; Boy George was the hat-check girl...



And there we were, in the second row of the Arts Theatre, about to see this fabled creature in "a show full of chaos and nostalgia... and her own bar!". She certainly does know exactly how to get an audience enraptured - anyone who opens a show by playing castanets in her bra, manages to segue between Rawhide! and Rapper's Delight, and can mash-up Mule Train with Milkshake has my vote anyway!

Her (very rude) ad-libs, interplay with the Bette and Joan set upon which she was performing, her props (feather head-dresses, toy poodle, whip and hobby-horse among them), knowing asides to the audience, and of course the occasional slug of gin from the on-stage mini-bar had the audience splitting their sides with laughter! No challenge was beyond her - she sang the most bizarre range of songs, including Ten Cents A Dance, the Osmonds' Crazy Horses, Billie Holiday's Good Morning Heartache, Peggy Lee's I'm a Woman, and as a finale the classic Blancmange number Living On The Ceiling!



Exhausting, but downright bloody brilliant entertainment - I wouldn't have missed this for the world...

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