This Weekend's London Cabaret Zingers: 12-14 August

Franco Milazzo
By Franco Milazzo Last edited 151 months ago
This Weekend's London Cabaret Zingers: 12-14 August


What with all the excitement this week, we understand if you wanted to stay in but if you want to scratch that cabaret itch this weekend, you have some great options. So with zip, zero and zilch ado, here are our Zingers.

Zinger Of The Weekend: David Hoyle Unplugged @ Soho Theatre (tonight, tomorrow)

If you looked up "controversialist" in a dictionary, there's a good chance you'll see David Hoyle winking back at you. We spoke to the infamous Philosopher King of cabaret last week and, given the government's response to the rioting, his words have proved strangely prophetic.

His new musical show David Hoyle Unplugged is a new peak, somehow combining his spiky points of view on world leaders, rioters and those pesky "hetero-normative" gays with a giddy variety of songs; as well as the tongue-in-cheek I Touch Myself, New Order's True Faith is turned into a spine-tingling torch song and there's a barnstorming version of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt.

Friday's Zingers: Packed with more goodies than a car boot sale in Enfield, La Reve tonight has the best cabaret line-up (yet again) of the week. The all-killer cast of MC's MC Dusty Limits, Bourgeois & Maurice, Vicky Butterfly, Kalki Hula, Christian Lee, Up & Over It, Miss Miranda and Bret Pfister will provide the songs, magic, burlesque, hand-dancing and aerial skills to get your weekend off to a very good start.

US import The Flying Karamazov Brothers will be donning kilts and juggling whatever the audience asks them to (terms and conditions apply). We like.

Hair dye and safety pins at the ready: queer punk hits the Royal Vauxhall Tavern tonight as part of their epic Hot August Fringe. Pop along to Ste McCabe's Queer Riot to hear Atomizer, Maria and the Gay, Candy Panic Attack and more.

Saturday's Zingers: Like a "before and after" diet pill ad, Lisa Lee's Constructed at the Bistrotheque will be showing off the finished products of some of the acts who performed at her UnderConstruction nights. Looking happy, healthy, slim and tanned will be the likes of Willis, Nando Messias, Blanche DuBois, Helen Noir & Darrell Berry and Marcus Reeves.

Describing themselves as "the worst magic act in the country", Malcolm Marvelle and the Lovely Rita will be underselling themselves at the Baron's Court Theatre.

There's more punk tonight albeit of the burlesque variety at Dirty Dick's Elysian Nights. There will be more delights for the eyes than a vanload of stolen flat-screen TVs as Roxy Twirls, Trixiebelle Firecracker, Friday Blues, Miss Bruise Violet and Miss Bubbles take to the stage.

Sunday's Zingers: Like many a looter this week, Brockley's Jack Studio will be showing off something new this Sunday as they present a new season of one-off evenings with Have You Met Miss Jones featuring Leanne Jones and friends.

Look lively now and book ahead for the eagerly-anticipated return of Boris & Sergey's Puppet Cabaret and the cabaret extravaganza-stroke-riot benefit which is Steamboat Bordello.

Londonist would like to congratulate Enfield-born Mat Ricardo on winning the Herald Angel Fringe Award for "Three balls And A New Suit". We told you he was good.

David Hoyle: he's not just a mouthy Northerner; he's a mouthy Northerner who can sing:

Last Updated 12 August 2011