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

The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre

★★★★★
Natallia Pearmain
Read More

Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre

★★★★★
Jim Compton-Hall
Read More

My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

“When you’re presented with different dilemmas in life, you respond accordingly”: Debbie Kurup on The Cher Show

Mae Trumata
Read More

2:22 A Ghost Story at Criterion Theatre

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

The House of Shades at Almeida Theatre

★★★★★
Csilla Tornallyay
Read More

Grease at Dominion Theatre

★★★★★
Cristiana Ferrauti
Read More

House of Ife at Bush Theatre

★★★★★
Selina Begum
Read More

Banter Jar at Lion & Unicorn Theatre: “An authentic and timely one-woman show”

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • My Fair Lady at the London Coliseum
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • More than Ever (Plus que Jamais)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic at the British Museum
    ★★★★★
    Art
  • Roma Bar Show returns for a second edition in Rome next week
    Food & Drinks
  • “I wanted to sabotage it”: An interview with Mark Jenkin on Enys Men
    Cannes
  • The Innocent (L’Innocent)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Domingo and the Mist (Domingo y la Niebla)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Metronom
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • The Innocent (L’Innocent)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Metronom
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Moonage Daydream
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Crimes of the Future
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Decision to Leave (Heojil Kyolshim)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

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