“Wagon Wheel Watusi!”
The immortal words shouted by Cher at Christina Aguilera during her audience to become the new dancer at her L.A. Burlesque club, every “w” and “s” pronounced in her imitable husky voice. If this film only had this one genius line reading in it, it would be camp classic for that alone but thankfully this clash of the divas dance musical from 2010 is jam-packed with wild moments, equal parts brilliant music numbers and pitch perfect performances and equal parts dodgy songs and OTT acting.
Ali (Aguilera) leaves her job as a waitress in a small town to pursue a career on stage. After failing an audition, she wanders into a burlesque club run by Cher where she jostles her way to the top to not only learn about the world of burlesque dancing but to live her dream to become a singer (because you can’t have a voice like Cristina and not becomes a world class singer… obviously!)
The perfect film to throw away those January blues and perhaps inspire you to take up a new hobby like learning how to slowly take off items of clothing to brassy jazz music or hitting that high C like Christina? Either way you’ll leave the cinema knowing how to burlesque and with a hankering for 2000s black corsets, fishnet gloves and smushed up black eyeshadow.
This screening will feature an intro by Make A Scene curator and lead programmer of SCENE: Manchester LGBTQ+ Film & TV Festival Gary James Williams.
All our screenings are 18+.
The film will begin at the advertised time above.
