‘Someone is going to get pregnant tonight…’ says the creepy man in the paedophile glasses whizzing a spinning top into the people in the front row’s faces. Later we enjoy him reading explicit extracts from Mills & Boon books to absolutely hilarious effect.
Getting pregnant may not be on the cards for us – or for him! – but that’s not to say the atmosphere at La Clique’s 20th anniversary residency in Leicester Square’s pop-up Christmas market is not red hot. They probably call it cabaret or burlesque, but this is basically everything you love about circuses – sexy young people in skimpy outfits doing difficult and dangerous things – with none of what you don’t love about circuses (no clowns, no mangy lions).
First up is a woman who is swung from the roof of the venue – a temporary Parisian cabaret affair that comes off very Toulouse Lautrec, albeit without the prostitutes high on absinthe – by her hair! Then a furious tap dancer in a sequined suit who has the look of Harry Styles about him. Then a stange James Bond character who does weird things with hoops and glasses of water with goldfish in them.
And the crowd lap it up. When they’re not laughing, they’re gasping. When they’re not covering their eyes, those eyes are popping out at sights like the sexy man balancing high up in nothing but some dangerously baggy Calvin Kleins, the same man who previously came on as a breakdancer to climb unsupported ladders that someone thought it would be fun to set on fire.
‘Remain in your seats if you value your teeth,’ says the scary MC, an older guy who comes over with Peaky Blinders energy. The reason for the warning is that we’re about to have two roller skaters on the tiny circular stage, swirling furiously around with the tall man in a Spice Girls t-shirt spinning the woman, skates out, a scary speeds.
Add in a woman attached to a drip with plastic surgery markings on her body hanging from a hoop, some five-baton juggling and a woman being dangled from the ceiling and then hurtling face-first to earth in the hope that the guy down there will catch her and you’re looking at a classic night of top entertainment in an atmosphere that is louche and drinky (the bar is almost as big as the auditorium) and so sociable, it almost turns into a party. Arty, crafty and seriously sexy.
La Clique is on at the Spiegeltent in Leicester Square, London, until 5th January.
Book your tickets here: lacliquetheshow.com
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