Glamour girl Caprice has always been popular with the boys - but this week she's attracting the attention of scores of Sheffield women.

The model-turned-actress had theatregoers rolling in the aisles as one of the stars of The Vagina Monologues at Sheffield's Lyceum Theatre.

The award-winning show, which mixes outrageous belly-laughs with poignant tales of women's triumph and adversity, is making its third appearance in the city.

It's girls' night at the Lyceum...but that doesn't mean the boys can't come along for the ride too! Alright, the hen party atmosphere does mean that some of the gags get laughs they don't really deserve but that's not to say that much of the material isn't extremely funny.

Eve Ensler's long-running celebration of the female body is neither as outrageous nor as controversial as it would like to think it is but its' heart, not to mention the other bit, is in the right place.

Most of the stories, with a mainly American slant and just a few local references thrown into keep the home crowd happy, are light-hearted and the one real shift in emphasis, a harrowing piece of testimony from a Bosnian rape victim, movingly presented by Ellen Thomas, sits uncomfortably, and probably quite deliberately so, alongside the more general 'learn to love your vagina' feel good material.

It comes as no surprise that Su Pollard gets the majority of the laughs - she's the most spontaneous of the trio and brings the house down with a triple orgasm that would even leave Meg Ryan breathless with admiration at the sheer enthusiasm and vigour of it all.

But the evening's most pleasant surprise is supermodel and all-round celebrity Caprice, who demonstrates a lively and engaging stage presence, her almost alien beauty working extremely well in relation to the earthy, bawdy tone of the night.

By the time she's got a full house cheerfully breaking the last taboo and hollering out the 'C' word, you can tell she's enjoying the experience, sending herself up and throwing herself into the audience participation with the sort of abandon that suggests those rumours she might be doing pantomime this Christmas may be true after all!

Sheffield Today
June 2005