Taboo

Synopsis

Taboo tells the story of the times, with actors playing out the parts of the bill-topping performers who defined a generation, including Steve Strange from Visage, the indefinable phenomenon that was Leigh Bowery, the one-man entrepreneur extraordinaire Philip Sallon. And then of course, there's Boy George, travelling from squat to superstardom, from rock to rock bottom. The show interweaves some fantastical facts of the 80s with a classic love story of ambition, passion and betrayal.

Our Review:

25 September 2002

There's lots of good news about the ongoing and deserved success of Taboo.

First and foremost, Euan Morton is still giving his uncanny vocal and physical impersonation of Boy George, only a lot younger and a bit cuter. Around him, there are several excellent newcomers to the cast, including an extremely attractive Declan Bennett as Billy from Bromley, whose rites of passage the show charts, and Lyn Paul who brings real grit and a gutsy brassiness to the role of his devoted mum. Then there's John Partridge, newly installed as a more aggressively edgy, more realistically human Marilyn.

But the caricature kicks in with more of a vengeance in the underwritten, over-costumed role of Leigh Bowery, especially as now newly being played by Julian Clary. "I am art, you are parody," goes his big song, 'Ich Bin Kunst', but in fact that's reversed here: the show may be art, but he is all parody. Even in heavily costumed disguise, Clary never sheds Clary, bring...

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Latest User Review

213.55.13.148) - 17 January 2005:

fab lyrics + music b/g is a genius composer...

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