1 min read
Mrs P and I went to see Gigi last night at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. It was a very British occasion - pissing down with rain but the show must go on, and it did.
But I have to say I had a very surprising reaction to the piece itself. In my ignorance, I had assumed that Gigi was a piece of innoffensive froth. And certainly that's how most of the audience seemed to take it, and how the production had it.
I found it repellent. The basic story is how a sweet, innocent sixteen year girl is taught how to be a high class hooker by her family of hookers (they're called courtesans, as if that somehow makes them a cut above) rather than marry without payment.
All the characters act cynically. The men parade their dalliances with the whores, despite being married - indeed, the whole show is about the fun of such affairs - and are happy to use and abuse any woman they fancy. An entire scene is about the hilarity of one of the discarded hookers attempting to commit suicide, a joke which is then repeated later as if it is simply uproarious.
Clearly it's a piece from another age. But what I find bizarre is that I seem to be in a minority of one in finding a musical based entirely on the abuse of women to be deeply offensive.