“Don’t Hesitate to Catch This Cabaret!”

Rogue Theatre

UNINHIBITED: Dancer And The Devil by Rogue Theatre

Landmark Theatre, Ilfracombe

Review: Rosanna Rothery

CALL it a twisted cabaret, a dark carnival, a freaky floorshow, the setting for this latest show by Rogue Theatre was a bizarre nightspot.

Lounge Limbo was a secret bar, a nightclub hidden in the forest, a strange combination of the decadent and the degenerative. Entertainment was an erotic and exotic variety show (singing, dancing, circus skills and audience participation) with nightmarish undertones.

A curious and comical character called Cupcakes, kicked off the cabaret with an hilarious dance routine in which she vigorously and voluptuously stuffed her face with cream cakes. Beneath the sweet-toothed exterior we caught a glimpse of a manic murderess, a sweetheart turned sour after a bitter love affair with a soldier.

This motley collection of performers, we soon realised, had all run away from their past, their lives scarred by wartime secrets.

Lounge Limbo became a powerful metaphor for being stuck in a nowhere land, a place neither here nor there, where the torments of the past trap you in the present.

If it sounds at all heavy, it wasn’t. This was glittering, slightly demented, entertainment from beginning to end: uninhibited, abandoned dancing (a great fusion of lyrical beauty and burlesque), gorgeously grisly humour, sensual poetry (written by the fabulous Anna Maria Murphy), and mesmerising, continental-style live music from the obscenely talented Julian Gaskell. (My only regret is they weren’t selling CDs of the show’s soundtrack).

Like a lot of people, I sometimes hesitate to go to see an unknown theatre group, doing an unknown show, for fear it might just be a bit too heavy or arty. If this grim fandango was anything to go by, Rogue Theatre is definitely worth turning out for. Thought provoking yet marvellously entertaining.