Kabakunst (after Catherine Love)

In The Creative Martyr’s bleak re-centering of cabaret, the duo are

sinking from the start. Before the show properly begins, they mournful sing their perennial lament against consumer profiling, The List. And when they do enter the main stage, they're already defeated, unsure of either where they are, or why they are here. Sing or mime as they might, they are trapped in the same world as Beckett's existential protagonists.

There’s a brutal familiarity to Kabakunst. For a start, many of the songs are Martyr Classics. Kabakunst, created in collaboration with the Acquisecent Orchestra, Tom Harlow, Kim Khaos, John Celestus, Spangled Shadow, Bert Finkle and Markee de Saw, Calum MacAskill, Rufus and Ben, Tuesday McPhail, Drew Peacock, and Heather MacIntyre, trades heavily on its audience’s knowledge of previous Martyrs' shows. From the moment they introduce themselves, we’re anticipating cheerful tunes about death, drunkenness and destruction. More than that, though, familiarity is built into the very structure of Kabakunst. It moves, slowly, deliberately and relentlessly, towards its inevitable conclusion.

As the title suggests, the entire action (or inaction) of the piece is confined to the world of cabaret. The events of the outside world, represented by a video feed of political speeches on a backdrop, all occur around this peripheral point. Most of the time, though, we watch the distracting routine of musical showstoppers. They get the crowd up for a stomping march. They demand the burning of dangerous books, and have the audience help them build a literary pyre. Tom Harlow embodies the sexual seductiveness of money. Memories of youthful idealism are revived, celebrated and abandoned.  


This is choreographed resistance. Failed revolution distilled. Each routine, each jump forwards in time, is signalled with an interlude as the Martyrs grapple for meaning. Through it all, The Acquisecent Orchestra stare out with a chilling indifference, providing both musical depth to the songs and adding to the sense that the pair are trapped in a prison, in which observation is punishment. They seems to be obeying a regime enforced by the two silent henchmen who lurk around the margins of the stage. When the Martyrs chat or mime resistance or mockery of these sentinels, they are simultaneously trying to make themselves as invisible and inaudible as possible in this rigidly deterministic world.

The Martyrs might be the centre of the narrative, then, but they pointedly do not have the only voice within it. Unlike their earlier shows, they have other artists who dominate certain routines. And when Tom Harlow sings and dances, his glamour and choreography takes centre stage. “I'm money,” he smoothly croons before stripping and hiding behind whirling fans of feather. While The Martyrs may be robbed of their singular control of the narrative, the flavour and themes are clearly their own. Indeed, many of their routines are remixed versions of familiar tunes that speaks deafeningly of the controlling world in which they dwell. 

But can Kabakunst really be thought of as a post-modern re-framing of Wiemar Cabaret? It certainly reveals what The Martyrs see as the horrific undercurrent of cabaret, including its most rebellious manifestation, exposing the careless apathy of a genre which is enshrined at the heart of the resistance to fascism and with which we are so often asked to sympathise. Yet still it restricts the performers to idealistic displays of helpless misery, giving them no more agency than characters in a scripted tragedy. The whole narrative of the show, meanwhile, is structured around the failure of the revolutionary ambitions to become activism. The presence of the two henchmen is the scaffolding holding the characters in place, their shadowy presence dominating from offstage with their comings and goings and gestured demands.

Cabaret itself is imagined by The Martyrs and co as a brooding,

moody narcissist, clad in black and wrapped up in his own worries. Musical numbers that begun in pleasure (naughty books, having a cheeky drink, getting personalised service from corporations), progress from celebration to domineering and explicit statements of control to mindless acceptance, are all ultimately about cabaret itself– its desire, its pain. On one of the few occasions when we actually see striptease, Tom Harlow bursts onstage brandishing a pair of fans. He then goes on to play and dance to the soundtrack of his own suffering, wilfully ignorant of the rest of the cast.

Wildly thrashing his fake wings, Tom Harlow's character invites an immediate comparison with David Bowie, a man tragically obsessed with identity and determined to inhabit his own myth,

even to the extent of losing his sense of self. But every act of self-celebration has its accidental victims, its civilian casualties, of which cabaret is one. This is boylesquer as careless egotist, focused on his own meandering path to satisfaction at the expense of all others around him. While he dances, lost in indulging his own emotions, The Martyrs provide a melancholic accompaniment, reduced to supporting actors in their own drama.

This is one of a series of characteristically stunning theatrical moments that break up the simple line of the narrative. Just as the movement from jollity to despair contained in the overall arc and individual numbers becomes predictable, I find myself dragged back by a brilliant routine or by a sudden, surprising display of skill, as in Khaos' dance on broken glass. As ever with The Martyr's work, there is an familiar use of crescendo that can be disengaging, but as soon as one of those moments interjects I’m brought back on board, that knot in my stomach tightening again.

Immediately after the show, someone tweeted that Kabakunst is “about the creativemartyrsie thing you can imagine”. I know what he means: the horrible beauty, the compelling satire, the pin-point precision, the intellectual rigour, the underlying queasiness, even the extended introductions that underscore their political convictions . While watching, I was reminded in particular of two other Martyr pieces: the fringe production of Tales from a Cabaret– the early optimism, the mounting unease, the strange combination of jollity and nauseous paranoia – and the haunting performance of Funny Trap at the Rio Cafe.

The latter was The Martyr's first take on cabaret as a metaphor for state control, whose madness was seen through the lenses of various twentieth century theatre practitioners: Constantin Stanislavski, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook . Here, The Martyrs adds her own mature style, and it is utterly uncompromising in its eclecticism and self-referentiality. I struggle with it in the moment of watching, but I am also completely convinced that this oscillation between detachment and uneasiness is exactly what I’m supposed to be feeling. This is a cabaret that The Martyrs are determined not to prettify or over-dramatise.



As in Funny Trap, the climax of Kabakunst offers an echo of Soviet style state observation, but with a bloody twist. In the Martyrs' version, resistance is not beautiful or romantic or even straightforwardly tragic; it is tedious and enervating, usually foiled by alcohol or self-importance. No wonder it’s usually kept offstage.

Kabakunst @ Govanhill Baths

Although Wiemar Cabaret appears to be the most appropriate comparison for the Creative Martyrs (there's a clue in the title of the show), their productions have an increasingly post-modern edge that suggests a more contemporary influence. The re-purposing of familiar Martyr's tunes (War Whore becomes a marching exercise for the audience) and the juxtaposition of diverse cabaret styles (Tom Harlow's sensuous singing boylesque next to unaccompanied chants that evoke Gregorian chant) reveals a dramaturgy that revels in bricolage which, to paraphrase the Wu Tang Clan, brews a new stew with some old stock.

Kabakunst, rather like 36 Chambers, has an expanded cast, and flips between artists to keep the flow rolling. Two beautiful boylesque acts - both playing with the totems of gender identity - contrast against the gruffness of The Martyrs. Boylesque glamour becomes seedier by association, and the Martyr's romantic revolutionary riffs are lent sensuality and languor. Taking on Govanhill Baths, with its post-industrial aura of decay, The Martyrs both acknowledge the modern fashion for finding idiosyncratic spaces for performance, and evoke nostalgia for a past, when public utilities were actually funded by the state. 

Over the past decade, the Martyrs have worked hard to develop their own universe. The familiarity of some of their numbers (Funny Trap, War Whore) make Kabakunst simultaneously a greatest hits round-up and a new show. The themes - state control, the failure of revolutionary energy and the dangers of hedonism (this time, it's alcoholism) - resurface and their distinctive style of seduction, followed by deconstruction, is almost comfortably provocative. The introductory number sets the tone. The List begins by offering privileges to those selected, before becoming a nightmare of control and aggression.

More Critics Getting Tired...

GKV: Paul Puppet is talking about the Gary Barlow controversy. Apparently, PP has been flaming Barlow's gig listings by posting up "Not Cabaret Enough" next to them.

Meanwhile, next act. Dee Christopher. He's just got the crowd to cluster around him and says he does "some unusual stuff". There's a wee bit of a row going on next to the Vile Arts blog post. But Dee has just found five volunteers to help him with his first trick. They are grabbing crystals from a black bag.

EK: A row? Anyhow, this is getting interesting... he's trying to predict the colour of the crystals? Or rather, he's acting as a lie detector. Maybe they should take him in instead of a polygraph?

GKV: I have seen this trick before: Rob Drummond did it in his Bullet Catch performance. He is trying to detect who is lying by the tone of their voice. There's one black stone, five fists hiding stones... he found it. Easy...

EK: Isn't it basically a rule of probability? One stone in five? Either way, he's telling us a story now, about a psychic from the 70s.

GKV: Uri Gellar! He was part of my childhood. You ought to go and have a closer look... yes, got rid of him.

So, leaving Eric to ponder how the magic works, I'll ponder how this fits into cabaret. Eric's right - there is something old school about this act. He's recalling the sort of acts that used to turn up on TV in the late 1970s. Uri Gellar was taken seriously, for about five minutes, but magic, close up magic, was a staple.

Stupid really. I mean, magic on TV is like ventriloquism on the radio. Far too easy to fix... but here we have the magic being done right in front of us.

Oh Jesus is on the stage. This ought to be good. What the hell? I leave him alone for two minutes and Dee is saying that Eric is about to star in a horror movie. Now Dee is making jokes about being drunk. It's not smart to get a critic on stage when you are pissed up... I feel as if I am about to see a car crash. In slow motion.

Eric is going to take over for a bit...

EK: Yeah, that was interesting. I got to 'star in a horror movie'. Actually, I got nervous when he said "we're going to kill you tonight". I thought he meant he planned to fix some disappearing trick or something. But no, it was just an act. I pulled out a card to determine who was to kill me, then a few pieces of paper later we had a murder weapon and location. In the end, I was killed by Freddy Kruger, at the library, with a knife. Then, I pulled down a closed envelope with a script that had all these elements. Magic? I guess so. I'm too much of a critic to believe in magic.

Now the Creative Martyrs are teaching us about love... I'll be right back.

Barlow is Scunnered

Fun as it is to mock former boy band celebrity judges, I thought I could follow up yesterday's post with a more thoughtful evaluation of the "too cabaret" debate. The story so far: Gary Barlow disses a performer on X-Factor by suggesting their act is "too cabaret". Frisky and Mannish spearhead a campaign to challenge Barlow's dismissal of their medium, a video appears on YouTube and pictures pop up all over the net of various performers brandishing a "too cabaret?" logo.

The best bits so far: Frisky and Mannish write a parody number, mocking Barlow's opinion and the insipid music he makes, simultaneously undermining his authority to critique and demonstrating their own musical brilliance. Bert Finkle writes a passionate blog on how cabaret has the potential to move, contrasting it favourably against both Barlow's oeuvre and the musical theatre shenanigans of most X-Factor acts.

The most predictable part so far: I claim that Barlow's comments are actually a symptom of how criticism has been replaced by opinion. I have a vague memory that, back in the day, TV talent shows would have either practising artists (that is, not artists coasting on their back catalogue) or actual critics in the role of judges. Admittedly, the artists in question would probably be ones who had just come off the set of Celebrity Squares and the critics were not Kenneth Tynan or Mary Brennan. I just think it would be more fun if they had me as a judge, desperately trying to be kind tocod-operatic hopefuls while enthusing about the sudden appearance of a Live Artist smearing themselves in shit.

I'm also refusing to do any research on what Barlow actually said. Mannish hints that he was implying that cabaret belonged on cruise ships, and I am assuming that he wasn't complaining that it was a slyly subversive take on gender politics. I spent some time trying to work out the differences between burlesque, vaudeville and cabaret - and variety - so I am sure that Barlow is familiar with the current debate.

Yeah, I'm not being thoughtful, am I? I am just mocking Gary Barlow.

Anyway, I did think I'd do some research. Tonight, I am going to The Flying Duck. Scunner are launching their new album, and their main man, Paul Puppet is always a gentlemanly advocate of the cabaret aesthetic. Much as I enjoy having him chat on the Radio Hour, I hate seeing him  around the place - he is so well dressed, I feel shamed.

Fortunately, I'll have Eric on joint writing duties again. He'll be wearing a suit, and we are going  to blog live from the evening. There's a few acts there who might well be "too cabaret" and I am hoping that things will kick off. A march on the nearby cinema? The promised cabariot? A few good tunes from Bert Finkle and some astounding tricks from Aziz?

Well, the last two are certain. I'll see whether I can agitate for more. A live critic, reviewing as the acts happen, ought to be incendiary enough to get the entire performance community riled up nicely...

Here's the line up, apart from head-liners Scunner...

Dee Christopher-Paranormal magic
Markee De Saw & Bert Finkle-They met in a dream
The Creative Martyrs-Sinister winking since 1870
The Great Aziz-Illusion & Victorian magic
Mystique-A proper mentalist
Wild Card Kitty-this kitten has claws!
Kim Khaos-The bird is the word

The Dream Cabaret Line Up

It's a challenge, but I am willing to take it. A once in a lifetime cabaret line up, curated by me, happening only in my head, based only on acts who are still knocking about the Fringe in the last week. The trick is to not only pick them, but work them into an order that would make sense, give structure and entrance. That, and not cheating by picking the entire casts of Vive Le Cabaret or La Clique Royale.

I shall be predictable for my opening act: The Creative Martyrs. They are a Glasgow duo and were called Fringe legends by Fest magazine. They owe as much to Eastern European mime as they do to the Weimar Republic, and few double acts mine the rich seam between totalitarian terror and decadent despondency with such wit and aplomb.

Rather than the crowd-pleasers like Spare Part Baby or War Whore, I'd like to have them singing some of the episodes from last year's narrative based hour... there's nothing as refreshing at the start of an evening as a comic warning on the dangers of the loyalty card society.

The  Voodoo Rooms, 4 -25 August

At this point in the evening, I'd like some dance. The easy choice would be burlesque, but a sequence from Sanpapie's I am Son would be more innovative. I'd like the bit where they brandish a white flag, parade around like fashion models and invoke the exploitation of women and the tyranny of fashion: a quick reminder to the audience that satire doesn't have to be blunt, but can be complex and allusive.

Dance Base, 16 - 15 August 


Heading towards the centre of the evening, and time for a classic object manipulator. Mat Ricardo, Vaudeville Schmuck, probably needs little eulogising. He not only does that trick where he pulls off the tablecloth from beneath cups and saucers, but he flips it back on again.

Of course, his juggling skills aren't the only thing that get him on this special, imaginary bill. Ricardo's persona has a bit of the bite that I admire in other neo-cabaret acts up from the smoke. I'd like him to do his pieces while reciting the speech he made last year about the way that TV talent shows are destroying the variety tradition and transforming artistic skill into the equivalent of a dog doing a card trick.

Voodoo Room, 1 - 26 August

Although they are far less explicitly political than my other choices, I fancy Bourgeois and Maurice as my singing finale. The dysfunctional brother and sister mess up sexual and gendered stereotypes, recalling a 1970s Bowie, if he had used less smack and his egotism avoided the self-pity pitched against a practical pianist who would be happier in a back room bar. Shackled together by bonds that are never clear, they are recognisably in the same tradition as Frisky and Mannish, although there are less pop references to confuse my audience of older men who thought that this was a free burlesque night.

Underbelly, 2 - 26 August

Only now, with my line up nearly complete, do I realise that I need a compère. I'll call up Dee from the Itsy Collective: they are running a cabaret every night as part of PBH's Free Fringe, and her DIY ethic, and rejection of the conventional MC styling (she doesn't have an act that she needs to present, so her skills are all about dealing with the audience and rocking the house) appeal to my overall anarchic curation.

Voodoo Room, 3 -26 August

Alienated Top Five

Ah, alienation. Once upon a time it was the Marxist explanation for why capitalism could exploit the proletariat. Now, it's a handy catch-all to describe the human condition. While I can't claim to have a complete understanding of the concept, I probably live it, so picking out five works that express the anxiety of contemporary existence ought to be a breeze.


Making the list even easier is The Stranger, an old school monologue straight from the pages of Camus' existentialist classic. Guilherme Leme is alone under the spotlight, telling the story directly and with the polished aplomb of an actor who has been a fixture on Brazilian TV throughout his career. There's no surprise twists - the hero wanders through his life, kills an Arab, gets tried, becomes a symbol of monstrosity for the local community, especially for his atheism - but Leme holds the attention and builds the sense of utter meaninglessness through his measured, nuanced delivery.


If The Stranger offers any respite from Camus' bleak vision of a reality uninhabited by the divine or even compassion, it is through Leme's style. A mixture of a bed-time story for Gaulois smoking adults and a Film Noir detective voice-over, his presence, and talent argue that meaning can exist in the sheer joy of experiencing another human revealing truths. So - perhaps the last word there goes not to alienation but art's ability to reconcile.

Summerhall, 3-25 September


A more explicitly political version of alienation is arriving at Dance Base later this week. Last time they came to the Fringe, Sanpapie got in a van, loaded it with food, and drove from Italy to Edinburgh. This time, they come fully prepared, starring an ex-footballer and ready to respond to the frustrations of living in contemporary Europe.

I am Son takes its cues from a poem that references the revolutionary generation of 1968, trying to understand what it means to be, and how our history defines our legacy. "Let's say it is a a show on the West by young Italian schizophrenics," say Marco di Stafano and Lara Guidetti (co-director and choreographer).

Seeing themselves as Western European rather than merely Italian, Sanpapie fit beautifully into the grand tradition of experimental live art and dance theatre: "the absolute masters are Pina Bausch , Marina Abramovic, Sasha Waltz, Wim Vandekeybus, Constance Macras," says Guidetti. The two art forms themselves that evolved from the twentieth century's struggle to cope with its own idiocy, shattering the traditional alienation between word and movement, idea and image to encourage an immersive, immediate engagement.

Dance Base, 16- 25 August


If setting up a bunch of shows called "the alternative Fringe" and declaring war on the big venues is any guide, Bob Slayer's pretty alienated. In person, he comes across as balanced and charismatic and his actual show sounds as if it incorporates self-deprecating wit, improvisation and a philosophical challenge to traditional concepts of stand up. Slayer would probably laugh at any pretentious attempt by me to define his work, and since one show featured his aunt wiping his bum, he'll probably be happier if I shut up.

Slayer used to be a tour manager, and his career started on stage started as the guy who would get pelted by fans of the Bloodhound Gang when they had a mid-gig fag break. His approach - half abrasive, half generous - will probably alienate some members of the audience. He's in.

The Hive, 3 -27 August


Although Marxism has managed to pretend that it is the only socialist path, there has always been a counter tradition that comes from the UK, and eschews the revolutionary for a more democratic critique of existing power structures: that what the Labour Party used to be. The world's first two handed version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists comes from a novel squarely in this strand: a team of house painters are joined by social justice enthusiast Owen, and hilarity ensues.



Hilarity in the sense of Owen's attempts to inject a social consciousness into his fellow workers, that is. Written by a bloke who has done loads of Coronation Street episodes, this version of The RTP is plugged into the warmth and wit of northern working class theatre, and comes just at that time when the Coalition Government is doing its best to - hang on, what are they up to? I mean, I see the things they do, but I can't see any logic or sense in it.

Like many of the works in this political quarter, it emphasises not the big ideas but the daily reality of working class life. While there is an argument that political theatre is best aimed at contemporary wrongs, The RTP is more than nostalgia: it is a reminder of where this nation has been, and how we got past the excesses of industrial capitalism.


Assembly George Square, 1 -27 August


Finally, I need to give some love to the Creative Martyrs. Fringe veterans, Glasgow legends, a pair of misfits who flutter between cabaret and esoteric Eastern European mime, a pleasure to watch and the inspiration for many an uncomfortable post-show conversation. This year they are going their greatest hits, which will include songs about babies being bred for the purpose of being a bank of spare parts, warnings about the secret agenda behind supermarket loyalty cards, chuckles at the end of the world and the fun parts of war that people so often forget in their rush to condemn those hard working business men in arms manufacture.

Oh, it's a comedy show. After a fashion.

Voodoo Room, 1 -27 August



But who can feel alienated in the Edinburgh sunshine? Who can feel lonely in a crowd on the Royal Mile? When every show is full, and stars are being found on every street corner? Who, I ask you, who?

It's all part of the smiling capitalists' trap, man. Say yes to alienation.

More Martyrs...

A good two years after the fuss about “the cabaret revival” has died down, a selection of artists are thinking about taking it to the next stage. Even Des O’Connor, who could happily work out the rest of his life seeking cheeky songs to high class variety audiences, has started on a more serious piece – his Once Bitten is a work-in-progress that plays with his jolly MC persona to explore a mid-life romantic crisis. And while Dusty Limits has been toying with audiences for a while – his persona was always hinting at a dark past and a path of decadent rebellion, the polemics of object manipulator Mat Ricardo against X-Factor and the trivialisation of entertainment into a circus of social Darwinism suggest that cabaret is becoming home to the political malcontent.

The current tour of Apocalypse by the Occasional Cabaret has seen some of the old hands getting back into the game: Occasional Cabaret is the latest incarnation of Benchtours, who can recall the vitality of Edinburgh’s Cafe Graffiti. The short revival of Wildcat and 7:84 in 2011’s Mayfesto added novelist and young spark Alan Bissett to their line-up, while dusting off their more satirical numbers. The National Theatre of Scotland is yet to fall for the vaudeville virus, but Scottish Opera made a successful alliance with burlesque juggernaut Club Noir at the 2010 Fringe. Add to this the natural sympathy between Scottish live art institution Mischief La Bas, and Dance Base’s support of Blonde Ambition’s narrative length burlesques – again hosted by O’Connor and starring Gypsy Charms, the mother of Scottish burlesque – and the vision of Linden Tree, to have cabaret taken as seriously as theatre – is already healthy.

The Creative Martyrs, formerly masters of the knowing routine, are undoubtedly Glasgow’s brightest hope for an integrated cabaret theatre. Tales from a Cabaret, despite being stuck in Fingers Piano Bar, has gathered support over two Fringes, and their recent version at The Art Club demonstrated how far the duo have come since their early days as a cheeky turn at The Rio Cafe’s Spangled.  Based on The Martyrs' mythical history, it concentrates on the tale of two turns in a fictional nation where decadent enthusiasm slowly gives way to  state-controlled art.

If the genius of The Martyrs is their fusion of some very experimental mime techniques, sinister story-telling and sarcastic sing-alongs , the strength of Tales comes from its ability to merge the bureaucratic horrors of Eastern communism with the shifting strategies of modern technology to control the market. The List begins as a charming parody of Facebook’s enthusiasm for collecting information, before slipping into a more oppressive atmosphere.

 The heroes of Tales, a dancer of ambiguous sexuality and an escape artist dragged deeper into government approved circles, are caught up in forces beyond their comprehension: Jakob and Gustav Martyr never lose their sardonic glee, even as they celebrate the coming end of individuality.

Their finale may offer a glimmer of hope, but The Martyrs’ vision of a society under total control is frightening and contains more satirical punch than anything from a major Scottish theatre company. Without ever reducing themselves to lazy, left-wing sloganeering, The Martyrs are a reminder of how entertainment can retain a sharp edge. 

The Creative Martyrs

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.