CÉST MAGNIFIQUE
Ooh la la! Take a stage, probably less than four metres square in size, and fill it with six performers, all singing, all dancing, in a room full of people eating and drinking. In the wrong hands this could be a recipe for disaster. Fortunately for the assembled audience last night at The Tusk Club, in the deep bowels of The Walrus Pub in Ship Street, we were in the right hands. Chocolate Box Theatre, the group behind this cabaret troupe, are seasoned professionals with a great reputation and track record, and they bring all their experience and talent to this full on celebration of the art of cabaret.
I’ve been before, four times to be precise, and I will definitely be going again. Not only do they give two hours of entertainment each time, they also add new numbers and new routines or they revise and reinvent a number. This time I Am What I Am, previously a solo from compère Cyril, becomes an ensemble piece. It was great but I will say the Cyril, AKA Connor Baum, delivered it solo in a performance that far outshone any other rendering I have heard of the song.
The repertoire is varied, classics, period comic songs, ballads, show tunes, some familiar and some less so. And each is fully staged, delivered in character, a bubbly American blonde, a sophisticated French chanteuse and dancer, a butch bell boy, a mincing matelot, a powerful grande dame and a saucy maitre de… yes very saucy, but it’s the sort of sauce that will make you smile rather than offend, think Carry On or Round The Horne.
Six people, six amazingly good voices, great choreography, high kicks, tap… what more can you ask, oh yes a live piano and drum combo, no pre-recorded tracks for this lot, and that shows, it gives them flexibility to ad lib and to go wrong which they at times do, rather unapologetically and making the most of it. I love that, that they are fallible, genuinely live and delivered with heart, they are all clearly having as much fun as we are. It’s impressive, it’s comic, it’s rude and raunchy and it’s definitely the best night out in Brighton, by a long chalk. I can award it my full five stars here but if I could I would give it forty, five each for this ensemble of eight talented performers. And on that note I have just seen that with my friends we are already booked in to see their next show on October the 31st, a Halloween special I suspect, scary fun, hoorah!
Andrew Kay
26 September
The Tusk Club at The Walrus
Rating:
