Roxies Rocks Chicago, London Cabaret Club Review
Written by Franco Milazzo for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review.
Since its inception as a pop-up arts venue in 2013, The London Cabaret Club has been captivating audiences with spectacular, large-scale productions including its lavish production of Gatsby at the Cannes Film Festival. Standing outside their London home, there is relatively little to admire about the Bloomsbury Ballroom at the ground level despite its grandiloquent name.
The fun starts in earnest once we descend down to the underground levels. Guests are handed a boarding pass labelled with their table number from where they get to experience this modern reimaging of the sell-out musical Chicago. With echoes of “he had it coming” ringing about, the main hall is found down the stucco gallery staircase along a long corridor not short on scantily clad girls caged in their corsets. Further along, there’s someone in a burgundy pinstripe suit handing out glasses of champagne when not checking their pocket-watch dangling on a chain. Did we on the way down slip, trip and land back in 1920s?
It’s quite the entrance into Roxie’s decadent world and sets the stage for the next room where truffle-infused arancini are savoured and signature 1920s-inspired cocktails are quaffed. A troupe of dancers in flapper dresses rush in from somewhere on our right, shimmying for a moment among the guests before they suddenly break loudly into the first dance number on a small stage set back behind some low round tables and chairs.
The show proper begins as the smoky, whisky barrel voice of the first singer rolls around across the white tiled walls. Dressed to the nines in a long silken cocktail dress bristling with sequins and pearls, she serenades those gathered below with an old almost-forgotten jazz tune as guests tuck into the champagne and salmon canapes.
It’s a venue with a history rich in all kinds of decadence. In the first half of the 2010s (an era still lacking its own snappy nickname), the kings of dark cabaret White Mischief held parties here, as did the burlesque troupe Wam Bam Club and sex party specialists Torture Garden. The London Cabaret Club bought the venue in 2015 and have since used it as the base for a series of ongoing themed dinner shows.
The current set design sees the audience sat in a grand art deco ballroom around a central stage where twenty performances – from dance and aerial acrobatics, to solo vocals and duets –punctuate a tastefully themed three-course meal. Starting with lobster and accompanied by a bottle of Italian wine, the menu reflects the Mediterranean tastes of artistic director and choreographer, Doni Fiero, who co-founded the club. It’s a step up from what Roxie enjoyed in the clink, for sure, but pedantry has no place in a show like this where the emphasis is more on entertainment than authenticity.
While Kander and Ebbs’ original musical is dark and dangerous, Roxie Rocks Chicago is a glittering silver affair. CEO Evelina Girling has capitalised on the West End show’s enormous commercial appeal but here has added an elegant twist. “All That Jazz” and “Razzle Dazzle” come at us strong in a night that effortlessly blends theatre and dinner into one raucous rumble suitable for all ages.
Headline acts by four awe-inspiring lead singers – including Paul McDowell’s flawless renditions of Frank Sinatra, Megan Truan’s bold and powerful Tina Turner and Sofia Klimovsky’s exquisitely molten delivery of Etta James’s iconic “At Last” – pop up on alongside Chicago’s classic show tunes. Ruby Hewitt’s operatic and booming vocals throughout carry the show forward with power. A troupe of twelve dancers move with a confident sway when not giving way to several jaw dropping specialty acts. It’s the gymnastics, though, that beguile the most, and the relaxed manner sometimes suggests that we’ve stumbled into the cast’s VIP after party. A decided step up in many ways from previous productions, the Club is heading in the right direction as it moves into its second decade at the Ballroom.
At London Cabaret Club until 25 June.
★ ★ ★ ★
