New dress-up punk show

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 11

New dress-up punk show

Take a group of 10 talented performers — mostly teenagers — dress them in bright funky clothes, set them amidst giant stuffed licorice allsorts while they sing and dance to popular punk numbers, and the result is the show with the intriguing title, “New Boots and Pants,” starting on Two at 7.30 p.m. tomorrow.

This dress-up punk show is aimed at the 12 to 25year- olds — the same age range as the performers. It is a good-time show featuring, in the performers’ own words, “our choice of music and dance.”

Viewers can roll back the carpets and join in for an hour of solid dancing and singing. “It’s the songs that people that age group enjoy - and like to sing and dance to,” says the producer, Andrew Shaw. Songs of the first show include “The GoGo’s,” “We’ve Got the Beat,” “Bananarama’s,” “Shy Boy,” and Devo’s "We’re Through Being Cool.”

The show is full of energy and youthful exuberance — which extends to the performers’ zany hair styles, exaggerated make-up, and colourful ever-changing costumes, created for the show by Dawn McGowan. Designed with a sense of

fun, while allowing for freedom of movement, the clothes range from baggy over-alls teamed with vivid T-shirts and sneakers, to black vinyl outfits with geometric inserts for a “Blondie” medley, to fantasy costumes sporting coloured foil ruffles. The show’s unusual name

comes from lan Drury’s album title,“New Boots and Panties,” and refers to the Cockney expression, “looking sharp in your new clothes.” The set is as varied as the outfits — giant satin toffee apples and jelly beans are replaced by ten-foot-tall lollipops and candy canes, or

mounds of gauzy pink candy floss and enormous slabs of chocolate. For the show’s choreographer — a former “C’mon” and “Happen Inn” dancer Christeen McKay — the movable confectionery forms allowed her unlimited freedom. “From the choreography point of view, it was

fantastic,” she said. “Most sets you have to dance round. But these are so adaptable — you can sit on them, throw them around, or use them as a rostrum.” Most of the show’s cast are experienced television performers with years of dancing and singing behind them.