Betty Boo

In a slightly unlikely turn of events, Alison Clarkson (“I’m half Scottish you know”) aka Betty Boo this month embarked on an extensive UK tour of mainly pretty small venues, including this one (capacity around 125 punters).

After her initial rush of fame at the turn of the ’90s she has mainly lain low performance-wise (maybe after some lip-synching accusations in Australia) but has been lately treading the heritage festival circuit a bit. This however is a slightly different proposition, with BB pretty much eyeballing the audience in the smallest of spaces.

What we got however, was a very enjoyable, if slightly nostalgic, night of fun. Deploying just one other performer (a female backing singer) Ms. Boo sang along to backing tracks through a surprisingly extensive set, mixing the old material from her first couple of albums with a sprinkling of new songs from her 2022 album ‘Boomerang’.

She danced, cavorted around the stage, joked with the audience and cheer-led them through even the lesser-known material – her enthusiasm was pretty infectious although inevitably it was the “hits” which got the biggest response (‘Where Are You Baby?’ being a case in point), with people singing and dancing along to 35-year-old tunes (yes debut album ‘Boomania’ is 35, ostensibly the reason for this live foray).

At age 55, wearing a sparkly number and still rocking her trademark bob hairdo, she still cuts a stylish but eccentric figure, and is a competent singer and rapper. Her musical schtick, combining slightly watered down Salt ‘n’ Peppa style rapping with proto-Spice Girls pop sass is still evergreen. Penultimate tune was the Hear’say number ‘Pure And Simple’ (which she co-wrote) before the much anticipated closer ‘Doing The Do’ with its oh-so-catchy chorus – the audience loved it!

Photos: Tommy Slack / @0405photography