Archive for December 30th, 2006

As the showgirl who recovered from breast cancer returns to the British stage tomorrow, writers, performers and campaigners applaud the most triumphant of comebacks

MARK BORKOWSKI, PR CONSULTANT

I think she certainly is a modern, popular, cultural icon. To a certain extent she is a pop entertainment phenomenon that transgresses a generation and sexuality. She’s a doyen to the gay culture and she’s someone that young girls look up to.

She’s wholesome, she’s fresh, she pushes sexual boundaries to a certain level and never crosses them. She’s never vulgar and has a high sense of kitsch and style and, in a way, she has pushed the envelope to a new area where people are trying to catch up with her.

She has reinvented herself in every generation. She started off as a soap star and has grown from there. She works her publicity extremely well in the sense that she’s never in your face and knows where the shadows are to retire to. She plays the media very well, she feels in control of it and her people are in control of it.

She chooses her moments with a huge amount of style. She is not someone who has used her private life. She chooses her marketplace to sell her image very well. There is a huge amount of sympathy for anyone who has been struck down with cancer.

It’s an evil disease and she beat it. I think she’s a great example to lots of people who have been in that situation. Someone in the public life is as vulnerable as anybody I suppose and I think there is a huge amount of sympathy. I also think there is a huge amount of sympathy because she doesn’t seem to be particularly lucky in love either.

Her management handle her publicity very tastefully. They don’t over-egg it and have called for privacy through the difficult time and they have achieved it.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article2112572.ece
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