Entertainment
Don’t try this at home: Return of wild fire-breathing, sword-swallowing cult cabaret La Clique marks official end of West End lockdown
Don’t try this at home (Picture: La Clique)
Truly heralding the end of lockdown for the West End, a bunch of fire-breathing, sword-swallowing cabaret artists are descending on London to make us want to hug our parents.
Trailblazing, albeit absolutely bonkers, show La Clique hustles its way back to Leicester Square’s Spiegeltent over Christmas to wake us from the slumber we’ve been in for 18 months.
As West End musicals get back to the stage, with the stars of Frozen pleading with fans to keep things safe, and Andrew Lloyd risking arrest to make sure his Cinderella is entertaining audiences once more, the weird and wacky is also back, apparently.
If you’re done with fairytales and want to see something daringly cheeky instead, what’s been branded a ‘magnificent melange’ of a circus/cabaret hybrid cult performance joins together with the La Clique Palais Orkestra, in the middle of the capital.
A new cast has been announced, with fire-breathing, sword-swallowing, Heather Holliday, quick-change artiste and hand balancer Mirko Köckenberger, Hula Boy Craig Reid (yes, that’s a job), as well as aerialists and France Has Got Talent finalists Hugo Desmarais and Katharine Arnold stretching and limbering up as we speak.
It all sounds very la cliche but after a year being locked away it’s exactly what la doctor la ordered.
Or this (Picture: La Clique)
It’s 105 minutes of madness with scantily clad rollerskaters, bendy acrobats to fire you up as the chilly mistress of winter sets in.
Perhaps just don’t sit in the front row.
What else is new on the West End this month?
The Wife Of Willesden
Zadie Smith’s first play, which is a gift to her home borough and reimagined Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale and stars Clare Perkins.
Runs November 11-December 24.
Manor
This satire stars Shaun Evans as well as Nancy Carroll as the owner of a London manor house sheltering an intriguing bunch of characters during a storm.
Runs November 16-January 1.
Heathers
Iconic tale Heathers returns to the West End stage this month moving from Theatre Royal Haymarket to London’s The Other Palace after a successful summer run.
Runs November 15- February 20.
La Clique runs Saturday November 13 2021 to Saturday January 8 2022.
