Vikki Stone & The Flashbacks: Big Neon Letters
Live Review

Vikki Stone has talent to burn, this hour showcases her stunning musical theatre voice and ability to write to a belting showtune.

She’s like a cartoon of exaggerated feminine gorgeousness, a more lustrous Betty Boop and with more pout than Marilyn Monroe. She’s verging on the self parodic, as she smoulders, wiggles and is in a constant state of sexual display, boobs flying, hair tossing, eyes widened, mouth agape.

I hate to comment on a female performer in terms of what she looks like before what she says, but it’s not as though she’s playing down her appearance and sexuality. She is acting out the role of a man-eating, predatory, intense woman who is also to be derided for her appearance. She seems to think she’s fat, but she’s got enviable hourglass curves and knock’em dead good looks.

In the spirit of working with what God’s given you, she foregrounds her bombshell qualities like a brunette Mae West, but crucially there’s no innuendo or double entendre here, it’s all spelled out in the grossest possible terms, we’ve got piss, shit, rimming, thrush, stinky knicker slime, dildos, wanking, fuckbuddies, pubic lice, and vomiting into an anus, (comedian Stewart Lee needn’t have worried about Joe Pasquale) alongside sexual obsession, stalking, intestinal health and the bitter hatred of other (thin) women.

She’s a born entertainer with ‘please love me’ qualities sabotaged by plain revolting content. Maybe some welcome a bit of disgustingness in a set, like a dash of chilli to sharpen the senses, but there’s nothing to contrast here, it’s all relentlessly yuk, like a four-year-old playing with poo. Of course the sexual and scatological content gets a reaction, there’s a lot of laughter in the show, but all laughs are not of equal value, getting a shocked laugh of disbelief is not the same as stimulating other areas of humour to get reaction.

You have to love the performer and her two patient (and frankly unnecessary) musical sidekicks on guitar and drums, but the wearying would-be transgressive nature of the material is a betrayal of her abilities. She’s a fame seeker, apparently seeking validation by the quality of her media profile, but this kind of show is never going to get her on the sofa for This Morning. She undoubtedly should have some recognition, but not for this, she’s better than she allows herself to be.