THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
London Palladium, 8 Argyll Street, London W1F 7TF and short UK tour
The pre-show outside of the London Palladium for Candace Bushnell's one-woman-show, True Tales of Sex, Success and Sex And The City, was a spectacle of fashionably dressed women taking selfies and clattering about in Manolo Blahniks. There was a feeling of blind determination to make this girls' night out very special. It was clear that many of the theater goers had heavily pre-cocktailed, perhaps on Cosmopolitans like the famous foursome of Sex And The City; Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, Samantha. The predictable demographic was predominantly women over fifty who had devoured the groundbreaking show, many of whom knew verbatim words to entire scenes. They came to watch Candace Bushnell tell her story of how she started out writing her titillating column in the New York Observer which was then published as a book and of course made into the award winning HBO television series.
Candace reeled off salacious nuggets from the recumbence of a velvet chaise longue, in a marabou-cuffed satin gown with Swarovski-encrusted shoes. It did take a moment to level set that in fact she is not an actress but a woman telling her story and although scripted, she satisfied with authenticity and shocking tales.
Arriving in New York with a suitcase and just $20, she met a man and the games began. Serendipitously, she was snapped by a photog at Studio 54 which made its way into a newspaper and she became an It Girl on the scene.
It seemed her New York life was charmed but she spoke of the hard graft she put in, the closed doors she negotiated and how she rose to make her way as a writer. The enraptured audience learned how she managed sexism and also embraced good sex. She became a masterful practitioner of the laws of attraction, kissing and telling about the many men, and women, she had bedded.
Candace who is 65 years old remains a beauty, whippet thin with innate good style. Her sweet, high voice lends an innocence to the tawdry stories of threesomes and Calvin Klein model shagging. Particularly fun was an interactive game of 'Real or Not Real' where you guessed if it really happened or didn't. Some bits might be lost on a British audience such as the tossing out of scrunchies, but she brings us back to those heady, party girl days with hangovers and next day regrets. She uses clips from SITC, sips Cosmos and everything is considered including the musical choices such as Helen Reddy's I Am Woman. Downstage is her personal collection of spotlit, Manolo Blahnik shoes, but she makes literary references to Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Dickens' Great Expectations – some Miss Havisham references might have been lost on some of the boozed up audience who at times shouted out.
Devotees knew what to expect, and candid Candace put out. She was exposed and undisguised. A superb night out.
