Bongo Club Cabaret Review

Hosted by the authentically decadent Dusty Limits, Bongo Club Cabaret serves as an incestuous showcase for a rotating bill of “desperately poor performers”, many of whom are due to spend their August entertaining under the auspices of Edinburgh's 'original multiarts venue'. As Limits announces, to ripples of laughter, that he is to open the event by performing an ode to self harm in the tradition of Cockney music hall, few audience members expect the corseted MC to prove quite so adept in both his vocal delivery and capacity for physical comedy. Limits draws upon these skills throughout the sprawling affair, as they prove the sole threads holding everything together.

A boundlessly charismatic performer, Limits is capable of evoking the variety and spirit of his entertainment heritage, infusing it with the light, self-conscious cynicism and sense of urban dread which tends to permeate Bongo Club Cabaret. Over the course of the show's 75 minute duration, audiences bear witness to an embarrassing wealth of variety as a curiously lecherous comedienne finds herself sharing the stage with an acrobat, a Romanian Gypsy folk duo and a Smurf-ish starlet, warbling her way though the 'blue' songbook.

Naturally, given its ramshackle nature and the diverse range of performers involved, the show is far from consistent. One noticeable lull occurs when Limits speaks of an absent author with what appears to be genuine malevolence, the show's unscripted nature betraying itself. Such moments, however, are forgivable, rarely surfacing in a night which remains refreshingly spontaneous and true to the spirit of the Fringe.