2 Unlimited, ABBA, Aerosmith, Andy Williams, Art Garfunkel, Axel F, The Bangles, Basement Jaxx, The Beatles, Berlin, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Bonnie Tyler, Britney Spears, Carly Simon, Cher, Chesney Hawkes, Christina Aguilera, Chubby Checker, Chumbawumba, Coldplay, Coolio, Cornershop, Corona, Cutting Crew, Destiny's Child, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Diana Ross, DJ Sammy, Dolly Parton, EastEnders, Enya, Etta James, Europe, Eurythmics, Evita, Ewan McGregor, George Gershwin, George Michael, Gerry Rafferty, Girls Aloud, Gloria Estefan, The Godfather Theme, Greensleeves, Hall & Oates, Hot Chocolate, Irving Berlin, Jerry Herman, John Travolta, Justin Timberlake, Kander & Ebb, Kate Bush, Kate Nash, Katrina & The Waves, Katy Perry, The Korgis, LeAnn Rimes, Leona Lewis, Lionel Richie, Li'l Kim, Lulu, Madonna, Mama Cass, Marlene Dietrich, Meat Loaf, Michael Jackson, Mya, Nelly Furtado, New Order, Nicole Kidman, The Nolan Sisters, 'N Sync, Olivia Newton-John, P!nk, The Pussycat Dolls, Queen, R.E.M., The Rembrandts, Round The Twist, S Club 7, Sandie Shaw, Shirley Bassey, Sinead O'Connor, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Sisqo, Sister Sledge, Snap, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Steven Spielberg, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Survivor, Take That, TLC, Tony Christie, Toploader, Van Morrison, Vanessa Carlton, Walt Disney, The Wannadies, Whigfield, Whitney Houston, et al.
Sounds Like
"BEEP" (HAVE A BANANA)
Archive footage of the original version
(later covered by The Pussycat Dolls)
Recovered March 2009
THE BALLAD OF EILEEN JOHNSON
A music video
February 2009
THAT'S NOT MY NAME (Live)
from School of Pop
March 2009
MANIFESTO:
"Pop music is a vicious snare - its seemingly innocuous lyrics are misleading, and its uncomplicated melodies delusive. We are here to re-educate you. You will never think of The Bangles in the same way again...
The rumours are true. We have arrived. No touching.
Signed F. Fitz-Frisky and H. A. Mannish."
"WHITE-HOT ONES TO WATCH"
[Time Out London, November 2008]
"YOUNG AND SMOKIN' LONDON DUO"
[Time Out New York, January 2009]
"CURRENT DARLINGS OF LONDON'S MUSICAL CABARET CIRCUIT"
[The Stage, December 2008]
"CATCH THE DUO BEFORE THEY GO BIG"
[London Lite, November 2008]
"A PAIR OF BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS WHOSE POP-STAR PASTICHES WILL SURELY SEND THEM SUPERNOVA"
[What's On Stage, March 2009]
"A SMIDGIN OF FUN"
[The Times, March 2009]
"WILL LEAVE YOU GASPING FOR BREATH... UNBELIEVABLE"
[The Sun, June 2009]
"IT'S A REMARKABLE ACT - the highlight of the four acts covered by this review, and likely the highlight of any evening... two EXTRAORDINARILY GIFTED and ASTONISHING performers, great presence, remarkably imaginative, wholly original - and COLOSSAL FUN."
[John Park, June 2008, http://www.fringereport.com]
"Frisky and Mannish were simply TOO GOOD to be in this show... FIVE STARS... Their comedy timing was perfect, their expressions genius... the whole audience were in THROES OF AWED HILARITY... Frisky and Mannish are a MUST-SEE, so keep your eyes peeled for them."
[Lea Mazzocchi, October 2008, http://www.remotegoat.co.uk]
"They are FUCKING AMAZING. They examine pop as it should be scrutinized: like IT'S ART. As a two-some, they re-interpret pop standards, deconstruct and engender narratives of music that will FILL YOU WITH ABSOLUTE JOY. They also have the ability to make you laugh, think and never look at a song in the same way again. The two apply a sense of POWERFUL STORYTELLING to songs that they cover so that the new version TRANSCENDS THE ORIGINAL. They are not simply a musical comedy act: the pair rework each pop tangent so that, much like Penelope at her loom, they deliver EVERYTHING GLORIOUS THAT YOU'D DESIRE in a show."
[Don't Stop The Pop, June 2009, http://dontstopthepop.blogspot.com]
THE RUMOURS ARE TRUE. THEY HAVE ARRIVED. NO TOUCHING.
BIOGRAPHY
Felicity Fitz-Frisky was born Lady Felicity Fitz-Harding on 9 March 1985 in Kensington, England, the illegitimate daughter of a French ballerina who died soon after. A wealthy English gentleman who had been the ballerina's lover took charge of the girl's upbringing, placing her in the capable hands of a plain governess. This governess loved Frisky's surrogate father, but was shocked to discover that he was already married to a Caribbean madwoman who lived in the attic. Frisky's childhood was spent roaming around the fifty-two chambers that made up the east wing of the mansion, amusing herself by creating imaginary friends. She was an extremely precocious child who spoke very confident French and loved to pirouette among the daffodils; however, she was also deeply affected by this solitude, and developed a desperate need for attention and approval, which she came to demand through ostentatious displays of her vocal skill.
Hansel Amadeus Mannish was born somewhere in Austria or Liechtenstein during the vague period of 1983-7 to unknown parents. As a child, he toured Eastern Europe performing with travelling gypsy camps, going by his middle name of Amadeus; an extraordinarily avant-garde musician, his songs were largely misunderstood, forcing him to temporarily abandon his music in favour of a more lucrative career as a burlesque striptease artist. He was often accompanied in the early years by a notoriously overbearing mother figure who could often be heard from the back of the audience screaming "Sing out, Louise!" This woman reportedly suffered from a severe hallucinatory illness, and persisted in mistaking the androgynous Mannish for her own daughter, presumably named Louise. Mannish's burgeoning reputation as the queen of elegant striptease led to irreconcilable divisions between the two, and he bid the pushy woman adieu.
Frisky and Mannish's paths crossed at the prestigious Conservatoire of Music in Leipzig, where they both matriculated in 2003. During their time at the school, they both underwent identical but totally separate life-changing experiences when they were forced to attend Saturday morning detention, Frisky for playing truant to go shopping and Mannish for setting off a fire alarm unnecessarily. Shut up in a room with five other people - a brain, an athlete, a princess, a basket case and a criminal - they came to realise that they were deeper than their respective stereotypes, in a heartwarming coming-of-age fashion. However, it should be noted that, despite attending the very same detention, they did not interact with each other once, and in subsequent interviews displayed no awareness of having shared the moment.
Frisky graduated in 2006 with first class honours in Vocal Studies (Classical soprano). Mannish graduated magna cum laude in Pianoforte the same year, and won the Mendelssohn Prize for Composition. The graduation ceremony took place in Leipzig Conservatoire's recital hall and was organised in the style of a traditional American high school prom. Frisky and Mannish, as relative social outcasts of their cohort, attended the event alone without "dates." In a surprise result, Frisky and Mannish were named Prom King and Queen respectively. They approached the stage separately, wide-eyed with disbelief. As they accepted their crowns and bouquets, slow breaking smiles of pure joy spread across their faces, and they waved and bowed in slow-motion ecstasy. What happened next, according to hearsay, was that a girl from Frisky's voice class who disliked her intensely, and the boy who placed runner-up in the Mendelssohn Prize competition, together executed a plan to humiliate the pair by fixing up a bucket of pigs' blood above the stage. Due to the Conservatoire burning down and all the students and teachers losing their lives in a freak telekinetic storm, the absence of first-hand evidence made the case practically unsolvable.
A blood-soaked but largely unbothered Frisky and Mannish properly met, post-graduation, in the restaurant carriage of a sleeper train from Dresden to Berlin, during which Mannish ordered the chef's salad with oil and vinegar on the side, and apple pie a la mode, the pie heated and the ice cream on the side, not on the top, strawberry instead of vanilla, or else whipped cream instead of ice cream, but only real whipped cream not out of a can, otherwise just the apple pie, not heated. Then, in an attempt to re-focus attention back on herself, Frisky faked an orgasm at the table, much to Mannish's surprise and that of their fellow diners. A woman asked the waiter if she could have what Frisky was having; this woman was American, incidentally.
The unlikely duo, now firmly bound together, embarked on a recital tour of continental Europe, visiting Lyon, Frankfurt, Bologna, Kiev, Brno, Krakow and Thessaloniki. They met with incredible, unprecedented, and as yet unrivalled, success in Armenia, where a monument was recently unveiled in their likeness; they were, however, banned from Portugal after a controversial outdoor performance for which they were both arrested and detained in Lisbon.
One of the most memorable concerts from Frisky and Mannish's European tour took place on the beautiful Greek island of Skopelos. They arrived by boat and, upon discovering a crowd of American and British people in a café courtyard watching three middle-aged woman sing bad karaoke, they naturally assumed it was the warm-up act and ushered them offstage before commencing their three-hour set. As the sun set, the crowd slowly dwindled, until there was just one solitary inexplicable cameraman as audience. It became gradually clear that, unbeknownst to the two, the three music-murdering women of the karaoke bar were in fact highly-respected Oscar-, Tony-, BAFTA- and Emmy-winning actresses, in the middle of filming an adaptation of a musical that centred around the songs of an iconic Swedish pop group. Frisky and Mannish's intended venue was actually a few hundred yards down the cliff path. As a result of this fiasco, Universal Pictures blacklisted Frisky and Mannish, and issued a restraining order on behalf of the blonde, dungaree-clad leading lady. However, the infamous stage invasion moment was included on the Special Edition DVD of the film, where it can be found under 'Deleted Scenes & Extra Footage'. Mannish can also be glimpsed in a crowd scene, engaging in a heated altercation with a British actor, previously famous for playing a fictional spy, who Mannish maintained was unable to fulfil the complex vocal demands of the score.
Following a last-minute poker game against two Swedish immigrants in Paris, won in a stunning coup by Frisky (later revealed to have been an amateur gambling ring co-ordinator while at finishing school in Switzerland), the duo boarded a ferry from Calais to Felixstowe, intending to break into the Western popular music scene. The boat had every luxury known to man, including swimming pools, tennis courts, spacious sunbathing decks, and a Lidl. Frisky would parade nonchalantly along the first-class deck, brandishing an elegant parasol, while Mannish would sit among the working-class passengers and sketch children with a charcoal stick. Standing on the very tip of the bow, they would raise their arms to the air and experience the feeling of flying. But then, unexpectedly, disaster struck. The ferry collided with an unidentified floating object, subsequently confirmed as a David Walliams covered in goose-fat. The ship sank, claiming approximately thirteen lives, and Frisky and Mannish survived purely by clinging on to a broken fragment of door for dear life. Frisky later reported that Mannish had graciously agreed to tread the freezing water in an act of martyrdom, so that she could recline comfortably upon the spacious raft; she cited vocal reasons for why it was necessary. Mannish has denied willingly risking hypothermia, and accused Frisky of repeatedly pushing him further down in to the sea.
Arriving in Suffolk on a rescue ship, they initially boarded with an innkeeper and his family at Wickham Fen, Cambridgeshire, and then quickly relocated to London, where they met with various record producers, all of whom suggested that they attempt to incorporate "pop songs" into their frankly impenetrable catalogue of music.
Caught your show on Saturday, bloody marvellous... We hope our performing paths cross once more. We're at The Bongo Cabaret a fair deal, you doing any more nights there? Enjoy the rest of your Festival....
outrageous... so honoured to be one of your top friends, so i make you one of mine, the top in fact, only to find today, of all days, when the rain is bucketing down, and yeah, my face doth wear, nay, adorn a frown...
i find myself absent from your top friends
you've changed...
(you can still have these though... xxx... as a symbol of x-rated porn, that's how violated i feel, like those innocent 16 year old vicar's daughters... they are NOT kisses)
Hey you crazy kids! Thanks so much for your Glasgow Cabaret Festival appearances - you were definitely my personal highlight of the week. 'Twas a pleasure and honour to see you and work with you - hope to do it again sometime! Kisses, Carrie x
Hey sexies! How are you?! How is the intro track going down? Bet you are looking forward to Eds! Can I get a CD of your tracks so I can listen on my ipod puh-lease? Love you loads, bah-bye. H-J :X
Brilliant!! That sounds like a cracking combo. :) That was the only thing missing from that show when I saw it - a good live band! Did you have any thoughts about coming to play for us in Oxford some time? All the best, Su (Queen of Clubs Cabaret)
Very Special Guest Announcement! On March 14th we will be joined by Mark Halliday, international star of The Rat Pack - Live From Las Vegas (see ww. texaschainsaw. co. uk)
The Bad JuJu Lounge!
It's always a night to dismember!
Featuring: The Texas Chainsaw Orchestra and Des Deville (compere) .. With DJs El Nino DaveDisaster and Sven Hopla
plus guest performers: Frisky & Mannish Rasp Thorne
Online Now!