The Riot Showgrrrls Club

After leaving The Riot Showgrrrls Club, I present one of the “labia cakes” I have acquired—that is, a fairy cake decorated with a gumdrop clitoris—to a friend. “Bland, except for the greasy aftertaste,” comes the verdict. Which is a bit like this show, really. Because, if this is a cabaret act, the mildly humorous lectures which punctuate the songs dull any carnival boisterousness. And if this is a campaign piece, the message—pro-sex, anti-pornographers, noncommittal on feminism—gets lost in a patronising pitch to an audience who, apparently, haven’t heard that the subjugation of women, be it in porn or pop culture, stinks.

The cabaret atmosphere is not entirely absent, however. The songs, performed wonderfully by Mistresses Lilith and Maggie, are the show’s out-and-out highlight. Slightly surreal, but infinitely evocative, these are multi-layered pop songs which would stand out on a commercial album. Nor are the lectures entirely uninformative: a sequence about pornographers such Hugh Hefner and Larry Flint, and their unorthodox views on rape and on sex with children is illuminating. But, in general, this is lost amid the uninspiring diatribes and trashy games.

The flashes of quality and unfaltering commitment from the group, Dworkin, suggest that here are two performers who could stamp the importance of these issues onto the face of the Fringe. I hope they do so next year, but they’ll need a much better show.