3 stars
The mock-up of the Berlin Wall painted with a German flag over-laden
with peace symbols onstage is the perfect embodiment of East-West
unification, especially when two dancing girls and a man in a sparkly
1980s jacket kick their way through the bricks that are holding it all
together. By this time the beach-balls bouncing around the auditorium
and the mass onstage Conga has already ensnared a room packed with
willing worshippers.
But this isn't some iconoclastic melding of east European avant-gardism
and pop culture appropriating post-modernism. This is TV's best known
former lifeguard's bombastic solo show, and we are all culpable.
Opening with a big-screen montage of his greatest hits, Hasselhoff
enters from the back of the auditorium singing a rat pack style
rendition of Nina Simone's Feeling Good, before strutting his way to
the stage for a tea-time diversion of taking stock, Hoff-style.
What this means is a loose-knit narrative from Knight Rider to Baywatch
to saving the western world. Somehow fed into this are lounge-bar
versions of Copacabana, You Can Keep Your Hat On, complete with shower
scene with a couple of blondes in shadow, some out-takes from his shows
and the real reason behind Baywatch's much imitated slow-motion
sequences revealed.
There's nothing subtle in the Hoff's self-deprecatory show-man schtick,
which starts at fever pitch and just keeps on building. Just when you
think things can't get any more absurd, he comes on sporting a kilt to
finish the show with a jaw-dropping version of The Proclaimers 500
Miles. That was the Hoff. He came, he sang, he conquered. Showbiz will
never be the same again. Until Aug 27th.
The Herald, August 24th 2012
ends
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