REVIEW: THE LOST CABARET PRESENTS: FEMME FATALE at Rosemary Branch Theatre 5 March 2023

Enjoying good theatre is simple; it’s good so you just sit back and take it in. Following this there’s the phenomenon of ‘so bad it’s good’, those works in which failures of intent or execution provide the spectator with some kind of twisted pleasure. Femme Fatale’s cabaret provides an experience well beyond this quaint notion, delivering something so bizarre it feels unclassifiable by any quality standard.

Hosted by the cabaret's two MC’s (who portrayed a self-important, supposedly world-famous band that took song titles shouted by the audience as inspiration for crudely improvised musical numbers), the five acts making up the cabaret were united in their weirdness; one performer came on stage and proceeded to ignore the audience in favour of foot-pumping an inflatable ball. Another tried, with definite earnest but suspect success, to beatbox an entire orchestra. While impressive in their bravery and the most cohesive of the night’s performers, these two acts lacked even a basic conceit. The performers simply just came out on stage and started miming or playing with their props and by the time we in the audience had gotten a grip on what exactly was going on, the act was half over.

The acts that followed this later on did seem to get off to better starts, but soon fell victim to their own lack of preparation or experience. In all these latter acts the performers broke character and/or corpsed at multiple stages, with many making light of the fact by stating they hadn’t rehearsed or ‘that bit needs a bit of work’ before moving on. Funny the first time, tiresome by the third. 

Many aspects of the night simply channeled pure bedlam. All acts were completely unfamiliar with the venue, often failing to know how to even leave the stage once they were done. The show started late, and the interval lasted twice as long as initially stated. A man in a rainbow clown wig and a Carnival masque stumbled late into the stalls, spilling a pint of Guinness and leaving us unsure if he was a part of the performance he’d interrupted (he wasn’t). Finally, the finale featured every performer returning to the stage to improvise a song and dance routine on the spot, and what followed would be hard pressed to pass muster in a kindergarten jamboree. A voice in the row behind me wondered aloud if the whole thing was performance art.

If The Lost Cabaret had intended to provide the strangest night of theatre I’d ever seen, they succeeded.

THE LOST CABARET PRESENTS: FEMME FATALE showing in THE ROSEMARY BRANCH, 5 March 2023

Part of LOOK FOR THE WOMAN FESTIVAL

Produced by The Lost Cabaret

Reviewed by Harry Conway