A strict filming ban is in force at the normally laid-back Soho Theatre, so I won’t be revealing the shockingly delicious visual gag which opens this show, marking Meow Meow’s return to the stage where she made her London debut in 2009.
The audacious stunt silenced the febrile audience, but only briefly, as the many acolytes of the Antipodean chanteuse and carabetière raucously welcomed the ‘post-post-modern superstar’ and ‘international singing sensation’ to the stage.
There were many more similar slips from the sublime to the more than faintly ludicrous to come. Indeed, the entire 90 minutes is drenched in bathos, as Meow Meow shifts, seemingly effortlessly, despite those five inch heels, from virtuoso interpretation of classic cabaret tunes to impressively lithe physical theatre, somehow avoiding full-blown caricature along the way.
This show is entitled: “It’s Come To This”, a running gag neatly sustained as the statuesque tragi-comedienne pushes her own grand piano onto the stage, winds down the overhead chandelier and nostalgically retrieves mementos of gigs in far grander auditoria from eponymous tote bags, although I suspect that genuine Carnegie Hall carriers are somewhat swisher than the one brandished here.
“It’s Come To This” is apparently still a work-in-progress but the hilarity of the strained stoicism on show throughout lends a pleasing cohesion to what proves to be an engagingly varied musical running order. She is accompanied throughout by an equally virtuoso pianist, Ben Dawson.
The Carnegie Hall show last year was entitled: “Sequins and Satire, Divas and Disruptors: The Wild Women of the Weimar Republic”, a studied and intelligent tribute to the singers, vamps and sirens of the heady and decadent period of 1920s Germany. I first encountered Meow Meow at Cadogan Hall, when she was an inspired interpreter, accompanying the late Barry Humphries on his personal, and sympathetic, examination of the singular music of this extraordinary period (interview link below)
As the show progressed, there was frequent and perceptive reference to parallels between the Weimar Period and much of what is going on in the world right now or “All the sh*t….” as Meow Meow herself described it. Lurking not so far beneath the bravura, the flamboyance, and the frankly sometimes far too personal, there is always a strong feel for the deeply political at every Meow Meow show.
Yet somehow, it is always seamlessly, skillfully, woven in – from her chatty perambulations through the front rows, altruistically ‘relieving the audience of their surplus stuff’ – grabbing and removing their belongings, in other words – to her nuanced versions of numbers such as Radiohead’s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. Meow Meow’s message always comes through loud and clear.
Personally, I could have done with a little more Dietrich and a bit more Brel, possibly without the distraction of fellow spectators, Dave and Steve, gamely ascending the stage and ‘aiding’ the performance. However, the rest of the audience roared in appreciation and gamely joined in, as the now legendary crowd-surfing commenced.
Meow Meow, a versatile actress and dancer, who has worked with Bowie, Bausch, Baryshnikov as well as Barry Humphries is a musician and performer of the very highest calibre. For this particular disciple, she can certainly carry on including the politics but, please, can we hear rather more of that extraordinary voice?
If you haven’t yet worshipped at the altar of this very particular diva, I suggest that you beg, borrow or steal a ticket for the Soho Theatre, but perhaps avoid sitting too close to the stage? If you want to hold on to your handbag, that is.
Meow Meow’s show: ‘It’s Come To This’ continues at the Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE until Saturday 24 May 2025
3 responses
…and what has this got to do with jazz?. I am sure there is barely a dry seat in the house, meanwhile real musicians are playing elsewhere, not getting this degree of publicity.
Alan thanks for taking the trouble to ask a very sensible question. The view that I take is that I want to give our writers working as volunteers – and especially our good and experienced writers – the latitude to write occasionally about other things than jazz which they really want to write about. I hope that makes better sense now. Sebastian
I take your point Sebastian, but it just upsets me that so many fine jazz musicians, both young and older, are playing to half full venues, because potential audiences don’t know about them -m especially lunchtime gigs. It must get very disheartening, musicians playing to half empty houses, despite the effort they have to put in themselves to advertise their gigs.