Cabaret Whore: More! More! More!

More of a four than a one-woman show, this hour of weird and occasionally wonderful cabaret sees the versatile Sarah Louise-Young perform as a range of alter-egos, each with an axe to grind.

First up there’s Bernard “Bernie” St.Claire, a ‘diva of a certain age’ with the same postcode as Elaine Paige but none of the success. She makes for a jovial opener, welcoming the audience as if they were guests in her living room and raising laughs with a savage ode to her career-spoiling daughter.

Next is Polish cabaret star Kasha, who came to England to work in the sex industry but found out it was a scam (“there were no jobs”), so had to work in a primary school instead. In a song about her fellow asylum seekers we’re reminded of the menial jobs most will end up doing – as with all Louise-Young’s characters, there’s a serious subtext beneath the sequins.

The disturbing yellow-loving ‘Baby Doll’ and her inanimate twin come next (queue disturbing hints about incest), before she closes with her trademark turn, bitter failed French chanteuse ‘La Poule Plombée’, for whom Edith Piaf is what Elaine Paige is to Bernie.

The laughs are rather sporadic at times, and the levels of bitterness infused throughout are a little too acerbic for my taste. But with a bit more light to contrast the shade, Cabaret Whore would certainly leave me wanting more.