rlt\eS •From transveslile clubs to student discos, Mike Flowers is the all conquering king of cheese. Set for aValentine's Dav extravaganza, Mark Tobln takes a look at this vears most unlikely pop star
M
ike Flowers, the Liverpudlian with the treacle coloured pudding bowl wig and the bri-nylon wardrobe, sets out his manifesto for total lounge lizard world domination; "lt's just an act, an honest light entertainment act. As for the music, people have been surprised that they enjoy it because they feel they're not supposed to. With the act I give them licence to enjoy something that they haven't been before." Hmmm ... nice 'n' cheesy. Mike and his band of glitzed up cabaret stars -The Mike Flowers Pops Orchestra - are set to swing the night away here at UEA on Valentine's Day (surely the perfect setting for ultimate kitsch overload!}. They promise to transform the normally drab and dreary concrete campus into a sugar coated pop pavlova complete with tutu wearing ballerinas supping margaritas with Colombian drug barons, whilst dyed pink poodles stroll by in a perfumed air. Well, possibly! This, The Mike Flowers Pops Orchestra's first venture into the world of Motorway Service Stations, vitamin pills and mass adulation, has all come about as the result of a joke. A joke whiph was picked up by Chris Evans on his breakfast show and initially played as a tongue in
cheek response to the testosterone fuelled ramblings of Oasis. However the British public in their best attempt to relive the Christmas of 1993 {Mr Blobby, need I remind you?) overlooked the joke and sent the single crashing into the charts at number two, only being kept from the top spot by Michael Jackson's Earth Song. A fact which Flowers isn't too despondent about: "I wasn't upset at all, because the idea of a Christmas No. 1 would be fairly stressful for someone of my temperament." Thanks to the success of Wonderwa/1, Flowers packed in his job as a technician at The Chelsea School Of Art And Design and signed a two year recording contract with London Records. Since then his bleached white grin has seemingly beamed from the pages of every publication from The Sun to The Independent, Melody Maker to Smash Hits, stopping off on the way to play a medley of Prince hits on Pebble Mill to the appreciative ears of Alan Titchmarsh. With reconstructions of songs by Black Sabbath likely in his live set, it seems as though hearts could melt on Valentine's Day. But only in a post-modern, slightly ironic, lounge orchestral type of way.