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Home / New Zealand

Review: Taranaki Arts Festival Trust’s Right Royal Cabaret Absolutely! Cabaret is absolutely fab

Ilona Hanne
By Ilona Hanne
News director Lower North Island communities·Stratford Press·
22 Jun, 2023 11:16 PM3 mins to read

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Sugar High Productions brings Absolutely! Cabaret to New Plymouth, following its premiere at 2023's Splore Festival and the critically acclaimed Heavenly Bodies Cabaret at 2021's Auckland Arts Festival.

Sugar High Productions brings Absolutely! Cabaret to New Plymouth, following its premiere at 2023's Splore Festival and the critically acclaimed Heavenly Bodies Cabaret at 2021's Auckland Arts Festival.

Excess. Pure, unadulterated, wonderful excess.

That’s the overall feeling Absolutely! Cabaret leaves the audience with, after a wild, fun ride of a show featuring the very best of cabaret acts.

From the moment MC Lizzie Tollemache steps on stage, her beautiful, melodious voice sets the scene as she gets the audience yelling ‘allelujah’, and pushes the crowd energy level higher and higher, ready for a night of pure (or maybe less pure, a little bit naughty) entertainment.

She’s not just any old MC of course, Lizzie is an incredibly talented stunt woman herself and during the show she not only whips the audience into a frenzy on several occasions, but also walks over broken glass, escapes from a strait jacket while upside down and suspended from the ceiling, and puts her body dangerously close to a very loud, very clearly dangerous whip - holding flowers as they, not her, are sliced in half. It’s edge of your seat stuff, especially when she gets an audience member to strap her into the strait jacket rather than an actually qualified professional.

Her audience interactions are always fantastic - she is a flawless performer, who reacts and adapts to the audience seamlessly throughout.

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Talking of seamless - pole-dancing contortionist Miss Hellblazer appears at times to be practically boneless and jointless, let alone seamless, as she twists, bends and contortions herself into all sorts of theoretically impossible positions. From demonic pole dancing to a telling of Red Riding Hood like no other, Miss Hellblazer is hypnotic to watch every time she is on stage.

A cabaret show is nothing without a fabulous drag act of course, and the Bombay Bombshell brings all the drag requirements of energy, humour and great legs to the night. As the Bombay Bombshell struts their stuff on stage, the audience are treated to a whole new view of their local supermarket. Safe to say, I won’t ever view the New World self service checkout in the same way again. It’s clever, funny and perfectly choreographed and costumed, just as you’d expect from one of Aotearoa’s very best drag artists.

Add the talented comedian Tom Sainsbury, sprinkle in some dynamic circus acrobatics from Dust Palace and Flow’s parkour crew, stir through some boylesque ballet from Everchanging Boy and some great stunts from Ladderman and you have all the ingredients you need for a night of sheer excess.

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Absolutely! Cabaret is cabaret at its best, and sets a high bar for the rest of the Right Royal Cabaret Festival.

The Details

What: Right Royal Cabaret Festival

When: June 22-25

Where: See www.rightroyal.co.nz for details.

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