Review – EastEnd Cabaret: Dirty Talk

My partner hates cabaret and refused to see this show with me, which is a pity, because if there is one cabaret show that could turn someone – Eastend Cabaret’s Dirty Talk would be the one. I tried not to peek at any of the rave reviews before arriving at the Famous Spiegeltent on a brisk autumn night – but five star reviews from around the world are hard to ignore when they are being rubbed in your face.

Eastend Cabaret is hosted by sultry seductress Bernadette Byrne and mysteriously moustachioed muso Victor Victoria. They claim to have been discovered slumming it up as housemates (or lovers?) in Hackney, London performing their dirty ditties above a gin bar. Whatever the origins of the duo (and for all I know they may have built a time machine and travelled to the present from Germany’s Weimar Republic) the show ‘Dirty Talk’ is a high-quality, low class lesson in how to perfect the art of cabaret. It really is the perfect blend of almost unbearable sexual tension, hilarity and slapstick, with Ms Byrne playing the oversexed straight woman to Victor Victoria’s lovesick fool.

The songs and stories touch on everything from yoga inspired sex to ’80s superstar orgies and tiny sex robots from the future, before reaching a climax with the thrill of public masturbation. And our hosts are not only skilled musicians and gag writers, they are also convincing performers, delivering some of the most uncomfortable, almost crossing the line moments I’ve ever seen, without the slightest flicker of breaking character.

The end of the one-hour show came all too quickly for me and I wanted to yell ‘no, wait I’m not finished yet’, but in the end if was quality over quantity for the Dirty Talk duo, with guaranteed satisfaction for the whole audience.

The last show is Sunday 6 April so get in quick to catch this saucy soiree.