The Femme Fatale -
A Beginner's Guide
The Rosemary Branch Theatre, London

Graham Lee

Lawrence can certainly dress the part of the dangerously attractive spider woman featured in the hardboiled crime thrillers of the 1940s and 50s: she appears on stage in a series of sumptuous velvet gowns and elbow-length evening gloves, her long red hair coiffed to make her resemble nothing less than a latter-day Rita Hayworth. Lawrence also displays an encyclopaedic knowledge of the films, as she highlights the clichés of the genre - from her breakdown of bad-girl archetypes (who, we are usefully reminded, almost always die!) to her demonstration of the correct way to die in movies (if you are a woman, it should always be bloodless but melodramatic).

But, as this is England in 2002, and not the United States in the 1940s, we are always aware of irony involved in being a contemporary femme fatale. For beneath the meticulously recreated screen siren persona there is the secret of the rather more mundane life of a girl from Romford, Essex with a shameful penchant for baking.

In her performance of 'Put the Blame on Mame' (a number immortalised by Hayworth in Gilda), she wears yellow rubber washing-up gloves instead of long black satin gloves, which she sexily strips off at the climactic point of the song. She later appears wearing a gingham housecoat over her gown, singing love songs to a suggestively scarlet food-mixer. Although the domestic housewife seems to represent the very antithesis of the strong and independent femme fatale, Lawrence wants to be both The Girl Next Door and Screen Siren, Betty Crocker and Lauren Bacall, homemaker and ball breaker. She wants to 'have her American apple pie and eat it'.

Despite or maybe because of its more-than-slightly camp nature, 'The Femme Fatale' works because of Lawrence's talent and evident affection for the subject matter. She performs songs from classic and not-so-classic films (everything from the torch song 'I'd Rather Have the Blues' from Kiss Me Deadly to the seductive 'Why Doncha Do Right?' from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) with wit and panache, her voice in fine form throughout. This show will be a treat for cabaret fans, but will also be savoured by film enthusiasts, who will leave wanting to watch their video collections of old film noir movies over again. Unfortunately, they don't make 'em like that anymore, even if we do still have Domestic Goddesses like Nigella Lawson to teach us how to bake.

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