Live Review

La Reve – Cafe De Paris, London

• 20th Jul 2011

A bit of a change for you now as we slip quietly into the distinctly cheeky, adult and all too often shimmering world of burlesque. London’s Cafe De Paris has a regular night on Friday’s called La Reve. Run by a regular team who feature artists who like to challenge us all with their naughty sensibilities, black as pitch humour and often dazzling acrobatic and vocal skills.

Compare Desmond O’Conner (no not that one!) is a very excitable host (sorry! Compere) for the evening. If they come any other way than camp then it’ll be a first, but he knows quite a few tunes that he likes to lay on the crowd (the one about “Cheap Shite White Wine” is a real pleaser), but sometimes his voice and breathing becomes so excited you’d think he was hosting the Thunderdome from Mad Max. Still he’s a name within London’s alternative world and has hosted and appeared in all sorts from Club boom Boom to the Bizarre Ball.

First artist on the bill is the half German; half Lebanese singer Ria Lina. With her ukulele she sets the bar high for performers to come. She spends a lot of time giving her own ethnicity and parents a good kicking as well before going all saucy at the end with a number about cuming second.

But it is a circus of freak acts that we are getting. The main Dancer of the evening who appears twice is Kiki Kaboom who is all hips and ass hidden under a fairly routine dress up and strip act. Still she dances like it’s about to go out of fashion (and if someone doesn’t offer something truly new onstage soon then it’s bound to do just that). Later she comes back for an improved, yet odd, act around Judt garland.
The Tootsie Rollers are a line up of 50’s singer dancers who visually are striking, but are perhaps a little bit disorganised at first in the numbers the picked. It’s only in the second half of their act do they truly impress with some harmony singing.
A real high spectacle is the Hula Hoop Queen Anna The Pocket Rocket .who starts leaps to the stage with a very slowed down beach boys number that slow and gradually speeds up, as she does before getting ridiculously fast. So fast in fact at one point she merely grabs a handful of hoops and just drops them over her head. It’s a real vibe builder amongst all the slow teases that usually appear on stage.

Slinky Sparkles is probably the more impressive burlese striptease act on stage as she is no joke, carrying her act with grace from start to end, and not merely another transformation act and she does some decent feather work in her act as well.

Lady Ane Angel provides a short but impressive fire act. Rolling the old lit marshmallows up and down her body as well as swallowing a few to extinguish them. I’m guessing the act is short as fire safety is probably on the forefront of the Club De Paris’ minds these days, and also there is very little you can do with the props anyway. But she goes out in a blaze of glory breathing a couple of mouthfuls of fire at the audience before she heads off stage.

It wouldn’t be a trip to Cafe De Paris for me without an Aerialist doing an act, and that we get in the form of Katherine Arnold. Defying gravity at every twist and turn she makes up and down the rope – it’s always worth sending the night out on a, er, high. And with that they bid us farewell after two full sets of alluring, compelling and highly enjoyable acts. La Reve is only the beginning of the night, but it has made it worthwhile!