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The Review - THEATRE by SARA NEWMAN
Published: 7 August 2008

Loving the cabaret girl
Miss Behave.

MISS BEHAVE
Roundhouse

SOME might consider it coarse for a compere to tell her audience after the interval that she forgot to go to the toilet or that the previous performer had a yeast infection.
Others still may see nothing funny in a man clambering up a pole, stark naked apart from a Normandy helmet, and falling on his co-star’s head.
But every one of the audience members at sword-swallower Miss Behave’s Variety Night was in stitches at the mock ineptitude of these tremendously skilled clowns.
Crooner Frank Sinazi depicts a deluded xenophobe with his outrageous lyrics, and slapstick Spymonkey’s anarchic and lewd comedy sketches lampoon the vacant allure of pole-dancing while shamelessly delighting in their own depravity.
Miss Behave (Amy Saunders) mingled with her audience, weaving between the dining tables drinking their margaritas and growling acerbic yet affectionate answers to A every doting heckle.
Clearly inspired by Variety shows that propelled the likes of Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and the Marx Brothers into the spotlight, irony and self-ridicule is at the heart of these performances.
Our dominatrix Miss Behave derides her forlorn elfin sidekick and initially refuses her access to the stage.
When she is finally granted permission, contortionist Marjo Nantel urgently unleashes a torrent of spiky choreography, lifting her performance above any silk performer I’ve ever seen.
Kalki Hula Girl, like a drunken warrior, enters the stage as your average brown tracksuited Waynetta but after an unbelievable continuous hula-hooping frenzy reveals her gold-sequined core.
Corseted Lucifire sauntered on stage for the finale, literally setting fire to her mouth, arms and legs without flinching before extinguishing a giant flaming whip.
What gives Miss Behave’s assortment of acts the edge is the humour and character of the performers.
Fans and foes of cabaret and even the most straight-laced among you would find it hard not to love this show.
Until August 24
0844 482 8008

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