A history lesson wouldn’t usually be a reputable source of entertainment for most people, but education should not be sniffed at. Thankfully, Shoo Shoo Baby did exaggerate slightly when they titled their show The Entire History of Cabaret.
Classically trained in opera, Anna Braithewaite and Tanya Holt gleefully trill their way through some of the more fascinating pinpoints on the cabaret timeline. Accompanied by the deliciously talented Michael Roulston, their flirty glances and sultry smiles lead us into 1920s Germany, pausing briefly in 1881 to visit a rather macabre and very nearly ‘Gay Paree’ before surging on (bottle in hand) to visit the land of the free – America in all its post Great War glory and then onwards into the jazz fuelled 50s.
With a slight essence of Rocky Horror and a whole lot of cheek thrown in for good measure, it’s a thoroughly entertaining show. As pointed out by a momentarily philosophical Ms Holt, “Life is absurd; only laughter can make sense of it.” And laugh we do.
Verbal warnings of sights so shocking that they may cause us to “grab our Karen Miller handbags in fear” are met with pearls of raucous laughter. And the raunchy threats made to a sheepish audience member are met with such a cheer that it is clear we have all been bitten by the cabaret bug.
But despite the aforementioned temptations, it is difficult to immerse oneself completely in the cabaret juices of pleasure, simply because it feels too early in the day for ‘that sort of thing’. It is as if a bottle of 30 year old Scotch whisky is served as an aperitif. Sure, it tastes lovely, but it sits a little heavy on a metaphorically empty stomach.
3/5 
Sydney Arber
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