Follies Girl – Mama Alto

Follies Girl is an audience with the trans icon Mama Alto in an hour of homage to the Ziegfeld Follies, the golden age of MGM movie musicals, beautiful chorus girls and legendary performers such as Judy Garland and Lucille Ball.

In a glittering black sequinned gown, Mama Alto enters the stage and for the one-hour show, sings her heart out, scattered with a plethora of one liners, and a feathered fan, negligee and a moon.

Follies Girl features songs including ‘There's No Business like Show Business’ and ‘The Trolley Song’ from the 1944 classic Meet Me in St Louis, as well as ‘When You're up to Your Neck in Hot Water, be Like a Kettle and Sing!’, which Mama Alto croons whilst literally sitting in a giant elegant china teacup.

There seems to be no end to her repertoire; ‘Hello Dolly’, ‘Moon River’, ‘Follies Bergere’, ‘Putting on the Ritz’ and ‘Tea for Two’ to name a few.

Mama is blessed with flawless technique and an ability to ad lib the dialogue bridges between numbers and holds the audience in the palm of her hand making you feel she is talking just to you.

Feigning an elaborate tap dance routine, she provocatively reveals her ankle and legs and playfully checks out her handsome assistants - who are scantily clad in g-strings, one in even less, tastefully covered with a cut out moon.

As well as performing to a backing track, she is accompanied by Alex Wignall -  pianist/composer/arranger/educator extraordinaire. Their styles blend so perfectly one would assume he travels with her. Not so, he had limited rehearsal with Mama. Together, they recreate the jazz singer genre and atmosphere perfectly.

The highlight of the performance for me is her torch song number with Wignall. It transports us back to cigarette smoke filled clubs of the 20s and 30s. The image of Mama pouring her soul out through a period microphone is powerful and lingers long after the performance.

Follies Girl is 70 minutes with a gifted performer who could have stepped out of a gloriously sleazy, speak easy. Mama Alto is all class with just a touch of brass and a voice that could stop traffic and soften the hardest critic!

Barry Hill OAM

Photographer: Claudio Raschella