Cabaret

Tim Arthur What are the challenges of transferring a show from the cabaret scene to a theatre space?
Jonny Woo ‘When I took my show from Bistrotheque to Soho Theatre, I found that I had far more space to play around with, which allowed me to move around more and to project and expand my performance. You also have the stillness of being in the centre of the experience. You have an attentive audience who are not going to the toilets, not having a drink, aren’t chatting. There’s no other activity going on other than the show itself.’
David Mills ‘I’m working much harder to create a word-perfect script. At somewhere like Bistrotheque there’s a looseness, a casual feel to the space, which doesn’t require that precision.’
Liv Maurice ‘When we went from Bistrotheque to the Soho Theatre, we took out some of the parts that relied on audience response.’ Feature continues

TA When you’re working in cabaret clubs you’re working in front of an audience who understand the form and vocabulary of the work your presenting. Theatre audiences may have different expectations and not understand the intentions behind your work. How do you overcome this potential problem?
JW ‘I had that experience in Edinburgh – suddenly all the looseness could be seen as gaping holes, and I was criticised for it and received mixed responses. I got slated by one critic, yet someone else thought it was the best thing they’d ever seen. Having said that, I did try to “Edinburgh” my show, sticking in guides and links for people that wouldn’t have been there in a purely cabaret setting. When there’s other stuff going on, there’s space.’
LM ‘There’s a point in our show where it’s just me on stage alone and I don’t really say anything. At Bistrotheque it’s hard to have moments of silence – people just turn to their mate and start talking or drinking, whereas at Soho I found I felt a lot freer. It allowed me to play with this period of time where not a lot’s happening. I could hold the moment. At Bistrotheque it was more of a fight – basically, you have to do something loud to keep people with it.’

Bourgeois & Maurice, David Mills, Jonny Woo, Simone and Tim

TA Have you worked with a director? Would you like to?
LM ‘I never have and I’d never want to! But that’s just me. There’s two of us so we can always discuss it. We don’t direct each other but we have friends who kind of work as a third person.’
DM ‘I don’t have a specific director for this show but I have people I trust coming to see it, such as Lisa Lee from Bistrotheque – to me it’s really important to have their input. I did a lot of theatre for a long time before moving into cabaret so I’m used to that phenomenon of having a director and that way of working. You can’t go to a theatre with a piece that hasn’t been developed. That’s why places like Bistrotheque are so valuable.’

TA When you’re doing a piece in a theatre is it more important to develop a clear narrative arc?
LM Even if you’re going to a theatre, there’s always a non-theatre audience that’ll come to see you. People are coming because they are interested in cabaret, they’re not coming to see a piece of drama. I don’t feel tied to any theatrical form. Having said that, I do feel we have developed a natural arc, but it wasn’t a conscious thing.’
JW ‘Exactly, we’re making something that is theatrical, but we’re not doing a play. I’m still keeping an essence of what my cabaret act was, it just happens to be in a different setting.’

Simone Baird At Bistrotheque you can try new material. Do you feel more pressure at Soho Theatre to experiment less and deliver more polished performances?
JW ‘At first it felt like that, yes, but when I got into the run it wasn’t so bad. However, having now learnt from my experiences, I want to go back to the anarchic club stuff I do and take that into the theatre and do something really unapologetic.’
DM ‘Certain people only want to see something if it’s finished or polished; other people want to see the process. You pay a lot more to go the Soho Theatre than Bistrotheque. One of our biggest challenges is not so much educating audiences as educating critics and the media. Often reviewers are constrained by their section in the magazine and they rarely look outside of it. For instance, look at what I do. Is it cabaret? Is it stand-up? Is it theatre? It’s in a theatre, but mostly I’m talking and telling jokes and doing a few songs. What does that mean I am? There’s a narrative but it’s not a play, so who comes? Does the comedy reviewer come? Does the cabaret reviewer come? Or does the theatre reviewer come? My worry is that it might fall between the cracks.’

Jonny Woo gets animated

SB So, what is cabaret?
George Bourgeois ‘It’s sort of undefinable, in as much as it sits between a lot of other art forms. Sometimes when performance art has too much of a sense of humour, it’s called cabaret.’
JW ‘I think cabaret is direct address, the fourth wall is removed, everything is said directly to the audience, like stand-up comedy, which can also be cabaret. The major difference, though, is that a lot of the time I don’t want to make people laugh. I’d rather mesmerise someone for half an hour with weirdness and amazingness. Narrative isn’t always the driving force behind it.’
LM ‘Cabaret allows you to mix art forms. If you do a play with a lot of projections it’s then a multi-media play. But with what we do, it’s simply one integrated thing. Cabaret.’
JW ‘We’re not talking about mainstream cabaret that happens on cruise ships, this is alt/drag/perf art, isn’t it? What makes it different is the level of experimentation. It’s part of a specific scene in London. Cabaret here is alternative performance; we just call it cabaret.’

TA How concerned are you about the increased level of criticism and analysis your work will face as you move out of the cosy club scene?
LM ‘It’s something I am scared shitless of. We’ve put our hearts into this work. But, ultimately, it’s a good thing because although cabaret can encompass everything, there is some shit that can bring it down.’
JW ‘Bearing that in mind I know for my next show in Soho Theatre there’s going to have to be a level of writing I haven’t paid attention to in the past. The flipside is, though, that the little cabaret scene is where you see bonkers things, genuine moments of true genius. If it was put in a theatre it would suddenly become ironic and become a spectacle with its truth taken away from it. That’s why I do it; we’ve all been to these weird midweek nights where people throw something together and you see an idea, and sometimes it falls flat but sometimes it’s genius and will never happen again.’