Brief Encounter With … Feline Intimate’s Meow Meow 

Today; the cabaret I love incorporates all the best bits of its genre; music with political satire mixed with out and out showbiz, high and low art (in the same breath), the ancient and modern, astounding virtuosity and truth in the delivery. Cabaret is the intimacy created through the excitement of ‘realness’, there is spontaneity, regardless of the size of the performance space. The countless wild stories that can be told in song after song , masses of human emotion and experience, all personal, special and cathartic. There is an expectation that anything could happen where no one seems t understand why they suddenly weep or laugh! There is the tension between words and music, and their fabulous collisions and collusions!

I love the flexibility of a cabaret format to take risks, to be endlessly reinvented, to respond to the personal and political circumstances of the audience, the performer and the larger world environment. It is a vehicle built for change and it drags history marvellously along with it. It should be a dangerous and passionate mix of art and craft, heart, head and spirit!

What can we expect from your show Feline Intimate at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival?

Life! Joy! Heartbreak! Hilarity! Agony and ecstasy in musical doses, along with a liberal sprinkling of sequins, politics and undeniable sexiness. And, conversely, what shouldn’t we expect from Feline Intimate at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? Television. There will be no television.

What do you want the audience to get out of your shows?

An earful, as an eyeful is inevitable! In short, sensorial and cerebral overload would be marvellous.

What do you want to get out of your audience?

Buzzing brains, split sides, slapped thighs, eternal adoration and a good martini post-show, of course.

Do you find big differences between audiences in America, Australia, China and Europe ? Do you tailor your shows to these audiences?

Yes of course. People relate to the intense physicality of these shows pretty universally, but singing Brecht in Berlin is an entirely different experience to singing it in New York City. I love that. It’s exciting.

What are you looking forward to doing in Edinburgh?

Having a lie down. A stage dive and crowd surf is the best rest I can have these hectic days. Such a great way to get to know the audience really intimately! Multi-tasking is a necessity in this line of art.

Feline Intimate is running at the Assembly at Princes Street Gardens, 5-29 August at 20:00.