Hamilton meets Spice Girls meets Madame Jojo's - in Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow's electric gig-theatre piece about refusing to be reduced, or erased, to a mnemonic. Six starts with an unequivocal insight: that, institutionally no less, …
Black Cat: Bohemia sets Underbelly's Spiegeltent alight with an impressive international line-up, an endearing and charismatic MC and plenty of real searing flames - but one too many moments feel genuinely (rather than just aesthetically) reckless …
Taking over from SOAP as Underbelly Southbank's second Spiegeltent headliner of the summer, Circa's Peepshow is regrettably culpable of the same sins: imaginative ideas seem oddly infrequent, sequences often feel underehearsed and intended effect is somewhat incoherent. An …
The next headliner in Underbelly Southbank's 2018 season, SOAP, splashes about but rarely makes waves in its endeavour to be the raunchy circus smash of the summer. Talent feels underused and underserved - and you …
Described as the 'grammy-nominated godfathers of alternative cabaret', The Tiger Lillies take us on an eclectic journey into all things dissident and dark in Devil's Fairground - but at moments withdraw from truly captivating their audience. With an …
It's about as twee and anodyne as shows come - but A Spoonful of Sherman is well-produced, energetically performed and entirely successful at bringing its (elderly) target audience to their feet. If the Oliviers ever introduce …
Love Happens Here: an LGBTQI Cabaret showcases some genuinely great voices, but suffers from a lack of the nudge-nudge-wink-wink delivery characteristic of both the cabaret genre and the most successful am-dram offerings. On the face of it, …
Ad Libido's superb structuring, relentless creativity and unmitigated rigour ensures it's as didactic, thought-provoking and genuinely affirming as one could hope for. Fran Bushe’s quasi-autobiographical Ad Libido adeptly deconstructs a taboo which continues to receive next to …
The Children Are Stinky duo are tremendously competent hand balancers, jugglers and acrobats. But - far more importantly - they also know exactly how to make kids gasp, cheer and feel confident. And that combination …
The 'second album' to the company's cult sell-out, Briefs: Close Encounters is tighter and more artistically ambitious than its antecedent. Outside of the ensemble numbers though, momentum and fluidity is not always sustained - and the …
Relentlessly silly and impossibly imaginative, Slightly Fat Features in VarietySoup is as good a family-friendly introduction to the world of cabaret and variety as they come. The aesthetic could not be more perfect; Slightly Fat Features have gone to …