It is rumoured that The Creative Martyrs are so dedicated to their art that they timed their weddings to avoid the festival season. While there is much mystery surrounding the true identity of Gustav and Jacob – even their trademark white face paint is the subject of much controversy – they have undoubtedly emerged from the nascent Glasgow cabaret scene to become a threat to dearly held theatrical values.
The Martyrs have the ability to defy definition. A career that has included stints in the Old Time British Music Hall and the cutting edge of the Weimar Republic’s decadent underground, they pull influences from both popular and decidedly unpopular culture. Whether they adopted the white face in tribute to European mime or the more caustic Eastern European theatre-makers like Derevo remains unknown: yet both their cabaret turns and extended show, Tales From a Cabaret, owe as much to the awkward squad of Russian drama as it does to the vaudeville that their musical interludes suggest.
Equally able to convert a wedding party into a mass choir celebrating the imminent end of times or distract a burlesque audience from the surplus of exposed beauty, The Martyrs flicker between genres, as mercurial as their accents and exploding the simplicity of the barbed lyric with a demonic and wry humour. Their subjects – the encroachment of the controlling state, the necessity of laughing in the face of terror, the ambiguity of decadence in the face of emerging horror – belie the ready humour, twisting cheerful cello and unctuous ukulele to a serious purpose.
The Glasgow Cabaret Festival will see them attack on all fronts: restaging the Fringe hit, hosting the Gatsby Club and sneaking inside Des O’Connor’s experimental new work. Often, the vaudeville revival boasts eclecticism through a variety of acts. The Martyrs are a one-stop-shop for silent satire, moving mime, poignant poetry, delicious deviousness, apocalyptic analysis, wrecked romanticism and knowledgeable nihilism.
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