Showing @ The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh until Sun 24 Aug @ 00:30
Despite having comedy, burlesque, dance, nudity, being full of sordid jokes and tequila shooting from water pistols, Bacchanalia is disappointingly lacklustre. It is vulgar without being shocking and void of the glamour and glitz needed to incite the necessary levels of excitement in a cabaret audience. Rather than a sense of ruckus and debauchery, an increasing feeling of awkwardness settles over the crowd.
The hosts TittyBarHaHa admittedly make a good effort to cajole the crowd into complicity, and are themselves the funnier, sexier and classier of the acts. But as a whole the show doesn’t fit together seamlessly the way a cabaret should. Acts feel incongruously matched – burlesque performance ‘Shave My Snatch’ (a reworking of ‘All That Jazz’) contrast with the more tame Bollywood dancing, and yet both feel a little flat. Neither are particularly arousing, exciting or impressive.
Comedian Stephen K. Amos somewhat saves the show; sporadic titters turned to full-blown laughter. Yet even he seems tired-out by it, running out of steam by the end of his act. As the final dance number begins onstage, half of the audience is already out of the door.