Glitz, glamour and glaringly obvious themes form the basis of Your Little Princess is My Little Whore, a topical burlesque revue from The Kitten Has Claws, headed by the infamous burlesque artist, Wild Card Kitty. Blending burlesque and performance art, this production tries to be cutting edge, but the results just don’t hack into its intended target.
A series of live and pre-recorded vignettes form the basis of this late night burlesque extravaganza that features topics as diverse as marriage, body image, and the media’s influence on our attitudes towards the female body. Your Little Princess also fuses politics, art and multimedia to create a piece that attempts to question societal pressure and fixation on achieving physical perfection.
Billed as a ‘cross discipline company’, The Kitten Has Claws’ attempt at combining traditional burlesque with satire to create a new comedy show produces results that are all too familiar. Composed of several sketches lampooning our obsessions with weight gain, the pain of menstruation and the search for eternal youth, amongst others, the piece’s declaration of the media’s negative image and declining self worth of women has been brought to the public consciousness several times before. But while the show’s premise is unoriginal, its supposedly affirming message of appreciation of all that makes up the female of the species is promising, but is unfortunately lost in sketches that patronise and belittle. Featuring a number of skits of Wild Card Kitty as a venomous magazine cover model that comes to life, this show alienates and insults the women and men that have paid to see it, with its use of tired and outdated taboos. Disjointed and at points, underdeveloped, Your Little Princess lacks the powerful and scathing content that its attention-grabbing title promises. While the troupe tries to bring a new dimension to the topic, it’s lost in a production that attempts to cover too many sides of the argument, and ultimately descends into repetition and cliché.