It is safe to say that there is never been a show quite like it at the Young Vic. Or anywhere else for that matter. “If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me” is the title. It takes a selection of music originally from male-fronted northern English bands such as the Human League, the Gang of Four and Cabaret Voltaire. A lot are from Manchester: the Fall, Joy Division/ New Order, the Smiths and Morrissey. The music is turned upside down and inside out. There is no speech, only song from actress Jane Horrocks, who chose music that she grew up with and inspires her.The vision of the woman who played Nicola in “Life Is Sweet,” Bubble and Katy Grin in “Absolutely Fabulous” and the title character in “Little Voice” taking on a song like “Nag Nag Nag” is intriguing to say the least.According to the show’s joint conceiver, director and choreographer Aletta Collins, it is rich in surprise, irreverence, humor and a touch of anarchy. It is not a musical, neither karaoke nor impersonation, she says.The songs cover a 20-year period, up to “Life Is a Pigsty” from 2006. (That song’s words sign off “even now in the final hour of my life, I’m falling in love again.”)Aletta, a former associate artist at the Royal Opera house, has a formidable CV that includes working with Scott Walker at the Barbican, choreography for “Bend It Like Beckham,” “Made in Dagenham” and much else.“It started out with Jane approaching the Young Vic and saying ‘I’d really like to work with these songs, I don’t want to make a play or musical and I want to work with dancers,’” Collins says.The title comes from an obscure Soft Cell number “The Girl With the Patent Leather Face,” on a limited-edition compilation album put out by the independent record label Some Bizarre.The show selects sometimes bleak tracks such as “Atrocity Exhibition,” “Isolation” and “I Know It’s Over,” but shot through with warmth and humor. Those expecting a greatest-hits revue will be wrong: the Human League is represented not by the big singles off “Dare” but the earlier “Empire State Human.” The Fall gets a look in with an underrated and hilarious track, “My New House,” which manages to rhyme “bills” with “window sills.”Speaking before the opening, Collins said: “Because there are so many different bands that we are using, I felt strongly that we did not try to tie it all up too neatly, more the musical theatre style, because that ran the risk of diminishing these songs. They might come from a similar genre or era but they are very different. We chose not to make it a single narrative story. The ambition is to make a concept evening, like a concept album you have these different songs - they are standalone events but there is an overall arc to it that is much more emotionally driven. Jane led the way - these are songs that she loves and connected with the lyrics. It won’t feel like a collection of pop videos either. There are four musicians and four dancers and Jane is the glue between the two worlds.”Grammy and Emmy-winning Kipper is the music producer and arranger; the band includes Rat Scabies of the Damned.The dancers have huge range over the one-hour show. “You’ve got the cliché of the backing dancers, we’ve taken that and we run with it in quite an extreme way,” says Collins, who hopes for a healthy balance of Horrocks followers and admirers of the music as well as “people of open minds who don’t want to be dictated to when it comes to a night out. It’s not an evening where there is one story and if you don’t get it, you’re in trouble. I imagine there will also be a much younger audience who don’t know much about these bands and have a really lovely surprise in front of them, discovering music that they do not know so well.”The theater was initially keeping the set list under wraps, only naming the artists. Once could only guess at the material: “Death of a Disco Dancer?” “Back to the Old House”? “Bigmouth Strikes Again?”We can now reveal that the full list songs which will be performed are: Gang Of Four “Anthrax”; Joy Division “Atrocity Exhibition” and “Isolation”; Buzzcocks, “Fiction Romance” and “What Do I Get?”; Cabaret Voltaire, “Nag Nag Nag”; The Human League, “Empire State Human”; Throbbing Gristle, “Hot On The Heels Of Love,” the Fall, “My New House”; Soft Cell, “Memorabilia”; the Smiths, "I Know It’s Over"; New Order, "Temptation"; and Morrissey “Life Is A Pigsty.”“If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me” runs from March 10 through April 16 in the Young Vic’s Main House, 66 The Cut, London SE1 8LZ
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