Meow Meow, Southbank Centre, Purcell Room - cabaret review: 'The best-rehearsed shambles in town'

This mock-shambolic cabaret show is the cat’s pyjamas
A fabulous clown: Meow Meow in Apocalypse Meow; Crisis is Born / Picture: Alastair Muir
Alastair Muir
Ben Walters18 December 2014

If your Christmas season sometimes feels like a frenzied attempt to turn on the razzle-dazzle while you're actually playing catch-up, feeling inadequate and self-medicating like crazy, spare a thought for Meow Meow — that's her whole year.

This sensational cabaret performer specialises in absurd, outrageous shows in which the wheels constantly threaten to come off: the lighting doesn’t work, the costumes are wrong, or there are problems backstage, leaving her fuming, putting on a brave face and dragooning audience members into assisting her. In reality, it’s the best-rehearsed shambles in town.

After 2012’s high-concept take on The Little Match Girl, Meow Meow is back at the Southbank Centre with Apocalypse Meow: Crisis is Born, an all-new seasonal outing closer in form to her regular shows. The festive spirit is represented by an inflatable donkey, unruly snow machines and an ingeniously improvised tree, as well as a musical repertoire covering yuletide emotions from frustration to delirium to quiet contemplation.

It’s all buoyed up by excellent musical accompaniment from Lance Horne on piano and David Coulter on “everything else”, including drums, guitar and eerie musical saw. There are also enough bizarre guests to create a truly memorable chorus line.

Christmas shows in London 2014

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Meow Meow is a fabulous clown, able to raise a laugh whether manhandling a mannequin, overdoing it on the happy pills or watching impatiently as an audience member struggles to unwrap a Christmas present. But she’s also a superb singer, technically and in terms of genuine emotional expression.

When she poses like the Virgin Mary, it’s a funny visual gag, but when she then sings about the strange, beautiful bond between mother and newborn and the chance that it might change the world, it’s fragile, sincere and moving.

Until December 29 (020 7960 4200, southbankcentre.co.uk)

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