Rich Fulcher: An Evening With Eleanor The Tour Whore
Live Review

Rich Fulcher has thrown just about everything he can at this hour of chaotic cross-dressing comedy – innuendo, surrealism, exaggerated character work, painful puns, ironic commentary, videos, songs, 3D effects, and uncomfortable audience participation – all creating a shambolic mess that hits peaks of knockabout genius and troughs of WTF? oddness with indiscriminate abandon.

Fulcher’s Mighty Boosh credentials suggest that Eleanor, the world’s greatest groupie by her own estimation, will be aimed at the tribally ‘unconventional’ youth market who so lapped up the cultish universe of Messers Moon and Noir. But this new creation really has its roots in the more traditional world of Fifties radio comedy – with its fast pace, zany ambience and lascivious filth, the show lies somewhere between the Goons and Round The Horne.

In vivid zebra-print dress, patterned tights and cowboy boots, the alcoholic, predatory aging nymphomaniac reads from her forthcoming autobiography, lifting the lid on the decadent world of rock-and-roll excess she’s experienced over the decades, beginning from when she ‘put the wood in Woodstock’ and ending with her current attempts to cash in on her notoriety.

She also gives us tips on how to sleep your way to the top – to get to the Rolling Stones you need to start with an unknown drummer – and introduces a new chat show in which she, basically, hurls gratuitous abuse at former conquests such as Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall.

Eleanor really doesn’t hold back, whether on the invective or the overtly graphic sexual imagery. Such raucous commitment enhances the best jokes, but also means weaker ideas – such as the use of Susan Boyle as an easy recurring target – do become tiresome quicker.

What starts off, therefore, as an irresistible full-on assault of gags, farce and in-your-face attitude dissipates over the hour, as the ideas wear thin and the energy of both performer and audience flag. By the time hit a spoof cookery show Eleanor’s Kitchen – the unfunny running joke being that she’s got no food in the house – you can hear the barrel being scraped.

So for a depraved half an hour or so, this is an exhilarating, sometimes terrifying, ride through Fulcher’s mixed-up psyche that will appeal beyond Boosh fans. But approach with caution: although Eleanor is a well-realised idea, the energy and humour doesn’t quite last the course.