"Come and smile, don't be shy
Touch my bum, this is life
We are the cheeky girls
We are the cheeky girls
You are the cheeky boys
You are the cheeky boys"
The
novelty act who turned up to auditions for the
2002 series of UK
Popstars with a song written by their mother and became the
water cooler moment of the tired reality show. One
Eurodisco backing track later, the Cheeky Girls entered the pop charts in their own right, hot on the heels of their spiritual sisters
Las Ketchup.
Twin sisters
Gabriela and
Monica Irimia are arguably
Transylvania's most easily recognisable exports since
Dracula, or equally,
Dr Frank N. Furter. With back-combed flame-red hair, a penchant for
hot pants and the slight build of those Romanian
gymnasts who lie about their age, the twosome resemble nothing so much as a pair of
Siamese cats outfitted at
Kookai.
Born on
October 31, 1982 - Gabriela is the elder by ten minutes - the girls were raised in the Transylvanian town of
Cluj-Napoca by their father
Doru, and threw themselves into showbiz from an early age, abandoning early experiments in gymnastics and
karate before training as ballerinas at the
Hungarian Opera House and, from the age of ten, the prestigious
Octavian Strola High School of Choreography.
After graduating in
2001 they decided to visit their mother
Margaret in Britain, and discovered she had ambitions to make a
tennis mother proud. Encouraged by Margaret, they entered
Channel 4's search for a catwalk star,
Model Behaviour, before turning up to their local
Popstars autidition armed with a song scribbled by their mum in half an hour.
The resultant
Cheeky Song, delivered in chirpy broken English, stunned the
Popstars judging panel, which included pop moguls
Pete Waterman and
Louis Walsh, and former Spice Girl
Geri Halliwell (a woman responsible for several
Ginger Taste Disasters of her own). Walsh and Waterman seemed especially enamoured of the duo, whose dance routine, seemingly owing much to Danish one-hit wonder
Whigfield, depended on much touching of bums. Poor Octavian Strola would turn in his grave.
The Cheeky Girls were invited to perform at the
National Music Awards in November 2002, signed to
Multiply Records, the home of German DJ
Sash!, and subsequently became just one among that winter's parade of European novelty songs. It's not
Aserejé, because the lyrics are marginally more comprehensible, and it's not
All The Things She Said, or there wouldn't be any Cheeky Boys in sight. In the next few months the song was released Europe-wide, and in a charming example of chickens coming home to roost, even looked set to chart at home in Romania.
As impossible as it might seem to outdo such success. a Cheeky Girls album was promised for
2003, with all the songs to be written by a proud Margaret, and the second single reported to be
My Español Dream. Feathers were ruffled in the touchy world of
Eurovision fandom when rumours circulated that the Cheeky Girls would follow
Pop Idol entrant
Jessica Garlick into the British final for the contest,
Song For Europe.
Such fears have not materialised, although one notes with trepidation that the line-up for the
Romanian final has still left one performer unannounced.
Cheeky cheeky...