Cabaret Review: Wam Bam Club @ Cafe de Paris

Franco Milazzo
By Franco Milazzo Last edited 161 months ago
Cabaret Review: Wam Bam Club @ Cafe de Paris

jackw.jpeg The Wam Bam club has grown rapidly over the last four years from its origin aboard a barge at Battersea Bridge to become a dining-cum-cabaret experience in the Cafe De Paris. We’re not entirely sure if this particular type of combination of fun with food works well if our experience at the Milk Club is anything to go by but we were happy to give it another try.

Compere and Wam Bam founder Lady Alex gets the party started in some style by emerging from a clamshell, resplendent amongst the dance troupe Cabaret Rouge (more on them later). The night had all the right ingredients of the modern cabaret cocktail, namely comedy, music and burlesque. Shirley Shirley were the best comedians of the night: their two bouts of physical humour (as synchronised swimmers and, later, ballet dancers) were dark, edgy and adventurous. On the flip side, Chris Cox is the own-brand Derren Brown and Jack Whitehall had a poor night with jokes about Rooney older than the striker himself.

The musical turns were varied too. Lady Alex takes to the stage after the interval dressed as Gary Glitter (yes). We’re not entirely sure how this faux pas went down with the foie gras but the diners were decidedly unmoved even when she stripped down to show off the “ironic” schoolgirl uniform underneath the oversized shoulderpads. The next act thankfully rescued the mood; Scales Of The Unexpected were quite simply superb. They only had time for three songs but they brought the house down with their clever wordplay as they worked through a mashup of one-hit wonders, a masterpiece of "literal choreography" and a version of Nessun Dorma with lyrics made up of Italian foodstuffs.

The burlesque acts of Cabaret Rouge and solo artiste Banbury Cross did a good job of straightforward teasing and titillating but lacked the kind of narrative we’ve seen (and liked) elsewhere until the end when la Cross emerged from an MDF birthday cake to show off her Marilyn Monroe-inspired moves and finishing with a champagne shower. As a cabaret experience, the show was a disappointing mixture overall with some real gems.

Last Updated 28 October 2010