Theatre
Clockwise from right: Deep Throat, two images of
Taboo, Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens, Head Games,
A Pornographic Fatality and 1. Jack Pleasure
Po m o n the x 4t h of Au 9 ust ‘ a
To read the tabloids you’d think the festival was a hotbed of sex and pornography. Well, guess what? It is. Words: Steve Cramer
rice. in preparation for a best man‘s speech at a
wedding. I typed ‘love‘ pltrs ‘relationships’ into my
search engine. and found that. aside from a couple of rnawkish poems from poets in no danger of losing their amateur status. all my machine would recommend were porn sites. And it’s a hazardous business if you should stray on to one. On this occasion I did and. counter to the intentions of the site. I couldn‘t get off. Throughout my ordeal. l was troubled by pop-ups. And the banner advertising that kept appearing was a nuisance. too.
This time. I investigated with discipline. but found stuff that varied from the naff to the revolting. and little of erotic value. The viler side of things was a real freakshow. with a bestiality site featuring not only women with dogs and horses. btrt even a succession of images of a woman with an eel and another with a huge lobster. This kind of hardcore prawnography can surely appeal to very few. Only those seeking to avoid seafood and those with exceptional curiosity would seek it out. A turn on'.’ No — surer closer to a Victorian Bedlam for curious audiences.
More conventionally. I found a narrative in the shape of a succession of thumbnailed pictures called ‘(‘indy will be Late for School‘. Cindy was clearly a woman who‘d never see 30 again — looking. in fact. about IS years late for school. All the same. done tip in blonde ponytails and a school uniform. complete with short skirt and boater. (‘indy meets a dustrnan. who takes her through a succession of outlandish sexual positions among some overflowing bins. Cindy rather breaks the illusion of sexual heat by grinning fatuously at the camera from beginning to end. btrt the dustrnan is rather more conscientious. showing far more engagement with his task than any council employee I‘ve ever seen.
For all it‘s naffness. porn is big business. By focusing on an iconic moment in porn history. actor Alex Lowe. whose previous collaborations with dramatist Simon Garfield have produced such Fringe hits as True Adventures ({thtdiU ()ne. hopes to elucidate an entire slab of porn history. Deep Throat: Live on Stage (Assembly Rooms. 2—26 Aug. midnight) tells the story of the two stars of that notorious skin flick. Linda Lovelace and Harry Reerns. 30 years after its release. Deep Throat. we should remember. is still the highest selling black-market film ever. while Lovelace in the 80s denounced her previous career as having been exploitative. then recanted. claiming that a lot of feminists had put words into her mouth. (liven some of the things . we‘d seen in her mouth. it‘s surprising she was so i y I . ' declamatory and she reappeared in an explicit girly " magazine last year. Lovelace died as the result of a car crash earlier this year.
Lowe‘s attitudes reflect those of most thirtysomething males. ‘When I was growing tip in the 80s. I went to a lot of parties where stripograms would appear.’ he says. ‘l’d stand in the corner with my .S'neialist Worker under my arm and tut—tut with my girlfriend. It was just awful. Really. I wanted
46 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 1 8 Aug 200?