La Clique, Roundhouse, London

4.00

When all that glitters is gold

News in pictures
News in pictures
On Facebook
Arts & Ents blogs

Beth Jeans Houghton interview: “I hate London”

Falling from the limelight is often damaging to any artist and devastating at the start of a career....

Turbo Records going into overdrive for 2012

Last year I interviewed Tiga, owner of Canadian label Turbo Records, about his ZZT project - which h...

Review of Being Human: ‘Being Human 1955’

Following on from an episode tinged with tragedy, this week lifted the mood with something lighter.

I first saw this wonderfully funny comic-cabaret extravaganza when it had its "first" London premiere at the Hippodrome in 2008.

The set-up of the show is a mad bill of fare that varies nightly, comprised of acts who pool their talents like loose-leaf members of a brilliantly rackety and eccentric family. The show's new incarnation is in the sublime railway shed-cum-Pantheon that is the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm. If theatre-in-the-round hadn't already existed, the configuration and cathedral-loftiness of this 19th-century industrial temple building would surely have prompted its invention. It's the venue's circus-tent potential that La Clique taps into – the epic hilariously elided with the intimate as the audience (some of whom stand; some of whom graze and quaff at tables) embraces a miniature circular stage at the centre of the proceedings.

The show was opened by Her Majesty the Queen (aka Queensland-born comedian, Gerry Connolly) who was togged out as if for a state banquet, though the glittery frock was the kind of tangerine colour more normally found in a sari. Keeping her reading-glasses tethered to her script, this monarch was a minefield of lapses into inadvertent lèse-majesté, the joke often a question of pronunciation (well, you try saying "my cousin, the Kents") and there's a glorious sequence where her Majesty's whole being baulks against the mention of "Camilla". The result is a compensatory bout of ever-more-bestial belching and unroyal eructation.

I was disappointed that the star turn of my first encounter with La Clique – a maniac called Captain Frodo was absent. He's the chump who threads his entire body through two tiny tennis rackets in a feat that looks like a Samuel Beckett slapstick pastiche of the parable of the rich man and the eye of a needle. Happily, there is genius of that order on the new bill. I loved the loony Swede Carl-Einar Häckner who looks, with his long wispy blond hair, lanky build, and ill-advised white jump suit, like what you'd get if you crossed Sir Andrew Aguecheek with a reject from auditions for an Abba Tribute Show. All manic apologetic laughs, and dove-like hand gestures, Carl-Einar lays you in the aisles with a routine that sees him following instruction from a how-to-perform-magic cassette that he picked up at a flea market. Things might have gone smoothly with the folding and secreting necessary for the trick being tutored, if it weren't for the fact that Carl-Einar imagines that a "bandana" is a "banana". Result: banana milk shake without the milk over everywhere.

The best act of all, for my money, is Meow Meow, a "kamikaze" cabaret diva who performs an audience participation routine that is a superb concept executed with wild comic perfection. Meow Meow is a volatile mix of crazed narcissist, inferiority-complex-in-plastic-and-glitter-trappings, demanding dominatrix and hapless klutz. These identities whizz round wackily – like discrepant radio stations sending out strange frequencies – as she ropes in various men to do various jobs for her as she attempts to sing a black torch song in German. One has to help her peel off her outer togs (hard when you are in such high heels); one has to hold her music for her (her grasp of the number somewhat shaky); another has to support her left leg in a kind of upright half-split. And all of them are needed when she struggles to form a swastika-shape with her collapsing chassis. It's one of the funniest things I have ever seen – not least because though insanely anarchic, it is oddly respectful of the male audience members it (only in one sense) exploits.

There's not a dud act in the show, which includes a mock-dykey duo on the trapeze, Ursula Martinez producing a disappearing handkerchief from ever-ruder orifices in her ironic striptease, and a genial leather queen, Mario Queen of the Circus whose role in life is to make promiscuity seem the nearest thing to a pantheist group hug. He binds an entertainment that has an affecting warmth as well as glitter.

To 17 Jan (0844 482 8008)

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus

Day In a Page

Apple admits it has a human rights problem

Apple admits it has a human rights problem

After years of complaints and workers' suicides in China the technology giant faces up to the human cost of its gadgets
Peter Moore: 'I feel guilty I'm the only one alive'

Peter Moore interview

'I feel guilty I'm the only one alive'
Sellafield faces nuclear option as overspending threatens plant's future

Sellafield faces nuclear option

Overspending threatens plant's future
Israel blames Iran for embassy bomb attacks

Israel blames Iran for embassy bomb attacks

Tehran rejects Netanyahu's 'lies' after diplomats in India and Georgia targeted
Former manager enjoying Apoel crack at the big time

Tommy Cassidy interview

Former manager enjoying Apoel crack at the big time
James Lawton: Patience may not be a virtue this time, Roman – Andre Villas-Boas looks all at sea

James Lawton: AVB looks all at sea

Abramovich's visits to training reinforce the idea of a coach feeling pressure from above and below
The 10 Best sledges

The 10 Best sledges

Not all of them require snow...
Procrastination: Not now – I'm busy

Procrastination: Not now – I'm busy

Confronting the real reasons for puttting things off can help us beat it
Fun in the sunset years

Fun in the sunset years

A new movie follows retirees moving to India for low-cost care and a culture of respect for the elderly. For many Britons, it's already a reality
Picture preview: Lucian Freud drawings

Lucian Freud drawings

Picture preview
Silent revolution at the Baftas as the French take top awards

Silent revolution at the Baftas

The Artist wins in seven categories, with Meryl Streep the other big success story
Whitney Houston: The diva who had – and lost – it all

The diva who had – and lost – it all

Nick Hasted charts the highs and lows of Whitney Houston's life
How Picasso won over (some of) the British

How Picasso won over (some of) the British

Winston Churchill and Evelyn Waugh hated his work, but Picasso provided inspiration for a whole generation of UK artists
Topshop: A Decade Of Design

Topshop: A Decade Of Design

When London Fashion Week starts on Friday, Topshop will celebrate 10 years backing its brightest young stars
John Prescott: 'My wife thought I'd just retire, but I'm not a slippers man'

'My wife thought I'd just retire, but I'm not a slippers man'

At 73, John Prescott isn't mellowing. In fact he's taking a shot at becoming a police commissioner