Sunday 2 August 2009

Sunday night is... Eine kleine camp wrestling





The referee, Sándor Kovács, is a Hungarian. Ricky Starr did the ballet act. In some respects the performance resembles that of any comedian-clown in any ring - Charlie Chaplin and Norman Wisdom immediately come to mind. What is fascinating is the way wrestling accommodated outrageous camp for an essentially macho audience.

Pro-wrestling, I mean. Amateur wrestling is just a sport. Pro-wrestling has always been carnival and theatre. The commentary too understands that.

British pro-wrestling had its own camp acts like miner's son, Adrian Street and Bobby Barnes (here fighting the legendary Les Kellett). The very programmes included camp pictures.

I put this up not because of a particular interest in camp, but to show the sheer comprehensiveness of wrestling, a working theatre of life.

But maybe some music too. This gorgeous thing:





Back to an essay on / review of poetry and visual art.



No comments: