The Archives: A Deal With the Devil

Hot Stuff

22nd December 2005 at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester

Cast

Lucy Fur … Ceri Dupree

The Boss … Melvin Whitfield

Julie … Yaa

Joe Soap … Craig Purnell

Miss Hot Stuff … Yildiz Hussein

Wuthering Kate/Glam Girl … Karen Rush

Peters/Glam Boy … Dougal Irvine

Ballroom Dancer … Lisa Dent

                                  Luke Hallifax

An infamously devilishly "jukebox musical" with it's origins in my own hometown, Hot Stuff is a show that returns every so often, much to the joy of theatre patrons across the city. It was created by Paul Kerryson, who I had auditioned for that very year, but had failed to secure the part of Young MacDuff (although I did receive a callback). In Christmas 2005, I was fortunate enough to watch the first of the show's reprises.

The show is a typical Faustian tale about a deal with the Devil, who is also the show's charismatic narrator. A young, would be rocker named Joe Soap is enticed by the villainous Lucy Fur (Ceri Dupree, in one of the most outlandish drag acts since Divine) into selling his soul for fame and fortune. The deal is sealed when he rejects his safe but boring girlfriend Julie for the sassy Miss Hot Stuff. Particular highlights of the show were the arrivals of the Seven Deadly Singers (notably "Wuthering Kate" a Kate Bush parody who was sorely missed from the show's second run in 2010), Joe's progression from Lenny Lurex (a spaced out  rocker in the style of David Bowie) to Jimmy Filth (spitting the words to a punk rock version of Jerusalem in a homage to Sid Vicious' My Way) and finally Lucy's heralding the arrival of the more severe Eighties by appearing in full Mrs. Thatcher costume. The true gem of this show however, was that it became less of a performance and more of an experience, from the end of the first act to the closing of the second, audience members began to join in with the singing, eventually dancing by their seats as though at a rock concert.

While at the time I lamented the fact that there was no DVD available of the show, it would be impossible to capture the live experience of this show. This of course made the idea of a second run five years later a most enticing prospect indeed.