Cabaret Chordelia @ Ghillie Dhu

Chordelia's artistic director, Kally Lloyd Jones, is a restless choreographer. Past Fringe entries have included a deconstruction of romantic ballet: this time, she squares up to the cabaret revival, finding a venue at the heart of Edinburgh's scene, and canters through a series of classic cabaret numbers with a dry intellect and restraint.

The key to Chordelia is always the intellect. Cabaret Chordelia strips away the emotionalism that allows the torch singer to reinvent themselves through standards, and stamp their personality on the familiar. By working with an operatic tenor, the show drains the melodrama from the songs, lending them an almost abstract quality.

The three dancers are more suggestive of the show-girl style, hinting at the feather headress and garter style rather than embodying it. The discreet costume changes that happen on stage underline the feel of self-conscious imitation that is echoed in the sporadic use of cliche.

Lloyd Jones treats cabaret like a sample on a slide, peering at its form and removing the bloody feelings. There is a sense of dance under glass: dry, cerebral, exposing the content and eschewing the drama. Overall, the tone is nonchalant, even flat.

Yet this is the point: taking the form apart, Lloyd Jones converts it into high art: tasteful and polished, but not glamorous and as gritty as an opera. It is a study on how popular forms are integrated into supposedly higher forms. Certainly cool, undoubtedly intelligent, Cabaret Chordelia is another wry entry into the company's catalogue. [Gareth K. Vile]