Meow Meow in Crisis is Born: Again - Review from the web

From Australian Stage

Crowned by a ridiculous wig resembling a well-groomed Pekingese, eye adornment that’d make Priscilla cringe, and seen in various states of fantastical and undress, the divine Miss M knows nothing succeeds like excess. And don’t think you’re gonna get away with being a mere observer: many and various were recruited, in no uncertain terms, to jobs as performers, prop assistants, and so on. I was allowed no time to contemplate the terror of linking arms with several others in doing our damnedest can-can. At last, I can say I’ve entertained an audience at the Sydney Opera House. That’ll look good on the cv. Crowd-surfing isn’t above her, either; no, we find her above us, on more than one occasion. She even juggles a whisky glass while aloft.

Her alleged determination to distract us from global terrors was fully-realised, albeit with some savage, incisive asides pointing to them. And even in the deeper moments, one can hardly take her wholly seriously; not while holding two lit cigarettes. She’s been hailed by practically every journal that’s any journal, whether it be at the humble, homey end (The Australian), or those bombs of sophistication, The Times (London), or Time Out (NY). In fact, to take but one, she made the latter’s top ten of cabaret. Full-stop. Yet I found the show uneven; patchy; flawed; a dissipation of the genius that obviously lurks in the persona and her creator. Mind you, the wholesale enthusiasm of the audience tends, very much, to cast me, not as a threat to the ‘bad’ name of the Moulin Rouge, but as the odd man out. 

There were moments, quite a few, of shimmering brilliance: one-liners so sharp they could pop a balloon at ten paces; well-chosen, sublimely enigmatic songs that entranced. Meow also has a lusty voice, for all I know capable of causing all the bathroom tiles Araldited to the shapely sails of the Bennelong bewdy to spill into the harbour. 

Read the rest of the review by Lloyd Bradford (Brad) Skye on here. 

Subscribe to Cabaret Confessional via email

Follow Cabaret Confessional on Twitter