Theatre

Bawdsville Burlesque and Eastend Cabaret

Alan Hindle | Friday 8 June, 2012 17:42

It’s great that burlesque has made such a roaring comeback recently, but many shows seem little more than compilations of funny striptease acts. Bawdsville, on the other hand, opening at Etcetera Theatre above the Oxford Arms pub in Camden 10 June, promises to be more of a saucy vintage sketch revue. With songs and comic monologues performed by gorgeous women in frilly bits.

Drawing its inspiration from 50s American and British films and ads, jazz and cabaret standards, the show’s theme is sex wrapped in lashings of innuendo. Given that double entendres, despite the French name, are as British as slapping heart clogging clotted cream and jam on a brick of scone, it’s a shame this show wasn’t mounted during the jubilee weekend. The hour and a half long procession of boats paddling down the Thames would have been so much more fun if one of the vessels had featured folks like Scarlett Belle, Ophelie French-Kiss, Unruly Scrumptious and Audacity Fox dressed as deviant schoolgirls being punished for ravishing the prefect. Her Madge would have waved back. She appreciates the feel of a quality horsewhip.

Speaking of quality filth, Eastend Cabaret are back from Australia and performing as part of the London Wonderland Festival at the Underbelly venue at Southbank. Personally, as a longtime fan of Soviet seductress Bernadette and her adorably creepy pet Victor Victoria, I have made great use of their website’s resident expert Mr. Little Red Book. I can’t claim to understand everything this moustachioed copy of Mao Tsetung’s quotations advises, or even anything, but through diligent applications of wax and stiff wire I have at least attained a passable version of his ‘tache.

Eastend Cabaret have deservedly become stalwarts of the London cabaret and comedy scene, and they will no doubt draw big crowds in a festival also featuring Meow Meow and Tim Minchin.

Bawdsville 10 June at Etcetera Theatre, above the Oxford Arms pub, Camden High Street. Show starts at 8:30pm.

Dozens of cool shows at London Wonderland, but Eastend Cabaret are on at the Speigeltent, 9:30pm 22 June and 26 JulyBawdsville

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