Review: The Sexy Recession Cabaret

By Jodi Yeats

As in the Great Depression, cabaret is still a great way to drown your sorrows in an evening of decadence, debauchery and drunkenness. In The Sexy Recession Cabaret, the latter is optional, and the former two are in the finest of taste, but it is still a wonderful evening of entertainment and escapism.

Directed by Eve Gordon, there are strong elements of circus in the The Sexy Recession Cabaret. Acrobats twirl and spin up long silk banners, with Gordon herself managing to belt out “I’m in the market” while gracefully swinging on a banner.

The entire space is used for items, including the back wall where a row of mermaid-like creatures is doused in sparks from an angle grinder applied to a metallic scallop shell on Sarah Houbolt’s crotch.

Later Houbolt did an incredible hoola-hoop item where she spun it around her entire body while performing aerial acrobatics. Houbolt was serenaded by Karen Hunter, who soulfully led an accomplished band of young musicians, associated with Tapac’s jazz school, in performing her own song, “Dangerous Diva”.

Many of the items are risque, but the line is drawn at the right moment for the evening to maintain its class. Still I had a sense males in the audience might have got a little more enjoyment out of the evening than women. There are a number of elegant striptease moments saved at the last moment by a strategically placed umbrella or sequins!

The evening I attended, Jennifer Ward-Lealand was a guest star and she really was a consummate professional, briefly stealing the show with “The Masochism Tango”.

Another stand-out item was Colleen Davis as a kind of Southern Belle singing, beautifully, about “Toothache Blues” with Mike Edward as a muscular dentist in tight, white shorts, with a large, stiff… drill in his pocket.

I was impressed by Nisha Madhan who sang “I Wanna be Evil” and whose evil striptease was saved from a descent to depravity by a large mirror.

Tama Waipara holds the show together as a likeably funny compere, who also leads singing of the closing number, “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries”.

As if to bear the show’s nostalgic premise out, the New Zealand Herald arts section last weekend celebrated a bonzer year for the arts, amidst the economic gloom, with, for instance, Auckland Theatre Company recording a bumper year at the box office (12 December).

All of the astonishingly all-singing, all-dancing, and acrobatically adept cast members are giving their time voluntarily to raise money for marketing next year’s programme of shows at Tapac. I can only hope their incredible spirit of generosity inspires some Christmassy giving in turn from the audiences.

The Sexy Recession Cabaret
TAPAC, 100 Motions Road
Until 20 December
Tickets $25 to $30
Bar open from 7pm, show starts 8pm
Book at www.tapac.org.nz or ph 845 0295 ext 1