Wait. Please don't judge us. Yes, we actually spent money to see the Peepshow at Planet Hollywood starring (a loose term) Coco Austin. We were swayed by the slick advertising, concept potential and the persuasive saleswoman at the Tix4Tonight booth. Mercifully, we didn't pay full price.
Peepshow is probably the worst show on the strip. It was a fifty/fifty show. Fifty percent of the time, I was bored to tears, while the other fifty percent had me laughing. Peepshow has very few genuine comedic or clever moments, but it was entertaining in the respect that it was "awesomely-bad".
SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
The premise of Peepshow is that headliner (the semi-celebrity with the biggest tits in the show) plays a woman who is discouraged by love. The show opens with a video montage of Coco Austin as Bo-Peep in the real world, as a business woman returning home from a long day at work. You know that she's a serious and successful woman, because she wears glasses. She passes a happy couple making out in the hall of her building, takes sensual shower and finally settles into bed with a book. She falls asleep with the book opened to a picture of the nursury rhyme character, Little Bo-Peep. In her dream world, she becomes Bo-Peep and meets other characters who help her discover her sexy side.
Once Bo-Peep enters the dream world, a nonsensical spectacle of song, dance and boobs erupts on the stage. Most of this show makes little sense.
Here are some of the main problems.
1. There is no way that anyone could possibly believe that Bo-Peep who is blonde, curvy and has boobs as big as watermelons doesn't think that she's is sexy. It's ridiculous. Why not make her a woman who has trouble finding a good man? A man who loves her for the right reasons and not just her giant breasts? The story leans towards that topic, as the Peep Diva character tries to find the right man for Bo.
2. Keep your fairytale and nursery rhyme characters separate. There is enough material in each genre, why mix them? Somehow Little Red Riding Hood is stuck in among the Nursery Rhyme Characters.
3. Make it relevant. Early on in the show, we learn via a song that was clearly inspired by You Gotta Get A Gimmick from Gypsy, that the characters in the show are going to teach Bo the tricks of the trade to being sexy. The show is then comprised of scenes that are not very relevant to the theme of teaching Bo.
Half of the scenes are not even relevant to the nursery/fairytale theme. They are just dance routines set to remixes of popular songs, like the Milkshake song, in which a woman in a school girl outfit pours milk all over herself and a trio of girls swim in a giant pool of milk. Milk has never been less sexy.
Those that were relevant to the nursery/fairytale theme were not very creative. The scene featuring Little Red Riding Hood has her inexplicable dancing topless on a car.
A real missed moment was when we meet Mrs. Peter Pumpkin Eater. I expected a naughty scene regarding "eating", yet got a woman pole dancing. This was one of the better scenes in the scenes in the show, as the dancer playing Mrs. Pete was quite an athlete on the pole, but it just lacked relevance.
Rub-A-Dub-Dub only had one man. Did they even bother to read the rhyme?
What the heck was up with the woman on a horse? It looked good visually , made no sense.
The Goldielocks part sort of made sense, with a childlike-woman choosing between three stuffed bears, until the bear skin rug was the right fit. Her singing was like nails on a chalk board and I think that it was intentional. It was just really creepy, not sexy and had nothing to do with Bo-Peep.
4. The story had a beginning, so it should also have a clear end. I guess Coco Austin popping her boobs out was supposed to be the grand finale moment, but the story had zero conclusion.
5. Don't guilt the audience into giving you a standing ovation. It's pitiful.
From a storytelling stand point, this show was a piece of crap.
The cast, including Coco ( I feel silly every time I write her name) were fine. Although billed as the star, Coco's part was minimal. She was mostly a moving set piece, rarely even speaking. Her enormous breasts were a spectacle. The real star was actress playing the MC/Peep Diva role, who sang and did quite a bit of improvisational battering with audience members. She owned the stage.
The production value wasn't as high as one might expect from a Vegas show. There was little in the way of special effects or sets. I kind of felt like we were at a nowhereville dinner theater production of Into the Woods.
The choreography looked like something slapped together by high school cheer squad for a half time show. I feel like the cast just knows that they are in a shitty production and are trying their best to keep the audience engaged.
Sitting in front of us was a row of early-twenty something frat boys who could not have been less enthusiastic about Peepshow. In fact, one of the guys kept apologizing for getting the group to go. We were amused watching them sit stone-faced the entire performance, not even fazed by the plethora of jiggling breasts on stage. They looked miserable.
I saw The Thunder from Down Under last year and their show had more cohesive story lines than Peepshow. Truly, the two are companion shows on the strip. Thunder had the guys doing a fantasy vignette ending each scene with the guys exposing their asses. Peepshow had fantasy vignettes each ending with the girls exposing their boobs. Some basic concept, just Thunder didn't take themselves seriously and had better concepts for the scenes.
Upon exiting the theater, we were immediately offered access to an adjacent club with an open bar. I felt like they were trying to buy back our good graces.
At the end of the day, I'm glad that we saw it. It was so horrendous that it had us both laughing. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard. It also gave us loads to talk about on the way home, especially coming up with our own nursery rhyme soft-core porn ideas that were a million times more creative than anything we saw on stage.
I only wish that we had splurge the hundred dollars a pop for the meet-and-greet with Coco. It would have been priceless to have that photo on display when having guests over for dinner!