HE was notorious for his playboy parties dubbed ‘bunga bunga’, and now controversial former Italian Prime Minister and businessman Silvio Berlusconi is about to get the star treatment with his very own burlesque-cum-cabaret show right here in Perth.
Well, sort of.
Le Sorelle Bandiera aka The Flag Sisters – who shot to fame in Italy in the ‘70s via the media magnate’s TV channels (he is the controlling shareholder of the country’s largest commercial broadcaster) – present Bunga Bunga Burlesqueconi, a tribute to the polarising ex-politician in his hedonistic hey-day, and the mysterious art of bunga bunga.
Neil Hansen – who runs a high-end Perth garden design business by day and still occasionally moonlights as the redheaded Petula by night – landed in Venice some four decades ago as a wide-eyed art and drama school graduate spellbound by ‘la dolce vita’, before arriving in Rome.
It was there that he found his creative soulmates in Mauro Bronchi, an Italian, who assumed the guise of Dorothy, and the late Mexican Tito de Luc, who became Glenda (performed in recent years by former WA Ballet principal dancer Ronnie van den Bergh).
After the drag queen performers secured a slot on Italy’s State-run station, Berlusconi featured them on one of the nation’s most popular Sunday afternoon variety shows.
“Italy was very political at the time and Rome was like a police state – on every corner, there were police with machine guns because the PM had been kidnapped, murdered and found in the boot of a car not far from where I lived,” Hansen recalled.
“But we were accepted by the right wing, left wing and the middle; everyone from the grandmother right down to the children embraced us, and the critics, thank God.
“It was the first time men in drag were shown on State-run TV and we were there from midday every Sunday, while families were having lunch.
“It was a really difficult time in Italy and people needed some light relief, and that’s what we were: apolitical, asexual, just pure entertainment.”
As for a pre-political Berlusconi, his philandering ways were hardly scandalous back then, with scantily clad women part and parcel of Italian daytime TV.
“The Italian variety shows always had beautiful girls with incredible make-up and hair wearing next to nothing, even those doing the news and weather and on normal shows, but especially on Berlusconi’s channels,” Hansen said.
“His reputation for the casting couch was rampant. And it wasn’t just gossip; for a lot of the dancers – if they wanted to get anywhere – that was the fast-track, by the couch.”
So did Hansen and co ever make it onto the guest list of Berlusconi’s outrageous parties?
“No, we weren’t pretty enough,” Hansen said, letting out a raucous laugh.
“We were invited to all the awards evenings and so on, but privately, we were the wrong sex to start off with, so we never ended up at bunga bunga parties.
“But in Bunga Bunga Burlesqueconi, that’s not the story we’re telling. The script is written as if we were the stars of the bunga bunga club, so you can certainly expect some lap-dancing!”
Bunga Bunga Burlesqueconi is at The Spiegeltent, Perth Cultural Centre, on February 15 and 16, as part of the Fringe World Festival.
Visit www.fringeworld.com.au for more information.
Emilia Vranjes