EIGHT TIMES a week for the past 25 years, Snow White has set outfrom San Francisco on a magical adventure around the world in searchof a marriageable prince.
Along the way she encounters a bunch of disturbingly priapicbananas, a line of dancing Christmas trees, a bar full of musicalrabbis, a Latin lover who closely resembles a bottle of beautycream,and a whole host of all-singing, all-dancing celebrities.
That, at least, is the world according to Beach Blanket Babylon,the quintessential San Francisco cabaret, and the longest-runningmusic review on earth, which is celebrating its first, wildlysuccessful, quarter century.Using the Snow White story as an excuse to send up the politiciansand showbiz personalities of the day, the show is a camp,deliciouslyoutrageous mix of popular culture and a comic sensibility all itsown.Everyone sports outsize hairpieces and even more outsize hats -from an Italian waitress with a giant pizza on her head to theentirecity of San Francisco perched upon the formidable head and shouldersof the longest-serving cast member, Val Diamond.Beach Blanket Babylon (or BBB for short) - named after a cheesymovie series called Beach Blanket - has been packing the 400-seatClub Fugazi, in the North Beach district of San Francisco, everynight since the year it began. Its loyal fans keep coming back formore, not least because the songs and costumes change constantly.At its 25th anniversary bash a few days ago, San Francisco'sdapper mayor, Willie Brown, sent himself up in an emperor's costume.The former US Secretary of State, George Shultz, appeared asSuperman.The show began life as a piece of street performance artimprovised by its creator, Steve Silver, and his friends from thecity's celebrated American Conservatory Theater. It evolved into afreelance party service called Rent-a-Freak for anyone interested inhiring a dancing tree or a gorilla on roller-skates.BBB took its first bow at the Savoy Tivoli theatre on 7 June 1974and moved to the Club Fugazi soon afterwards. It has become asimmovable a fixture in the city as the Mousetrap has become inLondon, loved by locals and tourists alike.The show has done stints in Las Vegas and turned up on Oscarsnight. Two years ago it came to London, effortlessly incorporatingthe Royal Family and Mr Motivator into its routines. But above all,the show belongs to San Francisco, for Steve Silver's great talentwas in cultivating the political, artistic and social scene in hishome city.As a result, BBB has become something of a salon for localpoliticians, philanthropists and socialites - celebrity audiencemembers range from Lauren Bacall to Billie Jean King, from KurtVonnegut to the members of Village People, by way of the Kennedyclan, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.Silver died of Aids in 1995, but his spirit has been kept alivewith astonishing reverence by his widow and long-time collaborator,Jo Schuman Silver. 'He is still very much running this show,' shesays. 'Everything we do is prefaced by the question, `How wouldSteve do it? Is it worthy of Steve?' 'Mostly, she and the show's director, Kenny Mazlow, haven't had toworry. A remarkably loyal and talented cast by now has a sure feelfor what will work and what won't.As soon as this month's round of anniversary charity shows isover, new additions will include an Austin Powers reference (inacknowledgement of the new film featuring Mike Myers' secret agent)and a send-up of Ricky Martin, the Latino pop heart-throb currentlysweeping America.Not that the basic plotline will change: Snow White will stillmorph into Madonna and marry a reincarnated Elvis in the end. Itcouldn't really happen any other way, could it?
