The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureTheatre

East End Cabaret at London Wonderground

East End Cabaret at London Wonderground | Theatre review
27 June 2012
Ramis Cizer
Avatar
Ramis Cizer
27 June 2012

East End Cabaret: witty, clever and veritably sexy.

Be wary of becoming too comfortable in your seat lest Bernadette Byrne decides to sit on your lap, only to later label you a potential stalker. There’s a skewed logic at play, it seems, in what has been dubbed Revolutionary Contemporary Cabaret.  Sex is good; lack of participation is the only vice – welcome to East End Cabaret and their romp of a show.

Ad-libs – sometimes dark, mostly sultry, and always humorous – interlace an impeccably choreographed performance. There’s enough intelligence to keep your lower and higher order desires tingling along with the cavorting duo’s songs. Byrne’s stage presence and voice are complemented by Victor Victoria’s versatile instrumentals and quips.  The characters interact in a fashion that conspires to build up the audience (or one particular member) only to cut them down in a morbid fashion. Byrne is often whimsically soft and sultry, Victoria clinically harsh in her assassination of herself, and other characters real and imaginary.

Put yourself through the East End Cabaret mill and you come out with a working definition of a “danger wank”. You will find gyrations and insinuations as to what it might look like on a train, at work or in a forest.  The half-man, half-woman Victoria confuses the spectacle somewhat in her demonstrations but you understand her androgyny is an easy barrier to hurdle. Her instructions are clear:  “It’s about self-discovery”, the audience are told, “touch yourself and your neighbour.”  

The tone of the act brings content, otherwise the more extreme side of risqué into the realm of the huggable. It’s witty, clever and veritably sexy. A must-see for pretty much anyone but the prude. 

Ramiz Cizer

East End Cabaret is at London Wonderground until 26th July 2012.

Related Itemsreview

More in Theatre

An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories

Selina Begum
Read More

A Livestream with David Bedella at Crazy Coqs Online

★★★★★
Regan Harle
Read More

Undercover at Morpheus Show Online

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

Playing ON: An interview with Jim Pope on life-changing theatre

Georgia Howlett
Read More

Sunset Boulevard at Curve Theatre Online

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

Hip Hop Cinderella

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Theatre in 2020: a recap (and an outlook for 2021)

Michael Higgs
Read More

A new world of theatre: Aimie Atkinson on groundbreaking theatre platform Thespie

Ezelle Alblas
Read More

Dick Whittington at the National Theatre

★★★★★
Samuel Nicholls
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Outside the Wire
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • You Me at Six – Suckapunch
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Sleaford Mods – Spare Ribs
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories
    Theatre
  • An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories
    Theatre
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Sleaford Mods – Spare Ribs
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Rock Camp: The Movie
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Undercover at Morpheus Show Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Ten short literary collections to get you back into reading
    Literature
  • Mayor
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Maroon 5 – Overexposed | Album review
Selected II at Whitechapel Gallery | Exhibition review