I’ve been to a few cabaret and burlesque nights in recent weeks. The beauty of them is that even though the basic concept is the same, the way the sets are devised and performed always seems unique and never grows tired or stale. Kind of like the inverse of a Jodi Picoult novel. My latest venture took me to The Black Cat Cabaret at Café de Paris in Soho where a decadent interior expertly conjurs up the palatial atmosphere of French vaudeville. Imagine Moulin Rouge, but with more sex and the absence of an over-acting Nicole Kidman.

Endorsing and encouraging all kinds of devilish debauchery, Black Cat Cabaret is the creation of long term collaborators Vicky Butterfly, Dusty Limits and David Harris: key players on the London cabaret scene. Their inspiration is drawn straight from the absinthe-soaked heydays of Montmartre’s licentious cabaret underworld and seeks to shock, thrill and excite over the course of a Friday night with a dash of fine dining thrown in for good measure.

I could actually write a small dissertation on all of the acts we saw over the course of the night, however I’m going to limit it three that specifically ensnared my attention. Firstly, this was the only time I have seen a ‘Reverse Striptease’ performed. Yes, that is pretty much exactly as it sounds; a near-nude young lady appeared on the stage to invert expectations and seductively adorn herself with the clothes strewn about the stage. Imagine living in such a topsy-turvy society. The reason the pay-check comes at the end of the month and not the 1^st creates an incentive to work. The reason a movie’s twist comes at the finale and not the start provokes the anticipatory incentive to keep watching. By this logic, it seems that a reverse striptease would be utterly futile. Not so. The artist in question gave a sensational performance. Perhaps it was the suggestive, alluring manner with which she carried it off. Perhaps the intimation of hiding something is even sexier than showing it. Perhaps I should stop trying to philosophise the art of burlesque….

Secondly, be warned. If you are sitting on the front table, in direct eyeline of the stage, and you possess the Y chromosome, you will be called upon to participate. My companion - in this seat in question – did apprehensively inquire as to if he would be enlisted as an enforced ‘volunteer’. “No…..” I had replied, with the same unconvincing dismissiveness as when someone at work asks me if I’m eating two lunches. And sure enough, the girl of the aforementioned reverse striptease would soon call on him to participate in a routine involving getting down on all fours, being turned into a horse and some impromptu tango (all the while being delivered an inventive range of provocative profanities). He dealt with all this with admirable enthusiasm, while intermittently shooting me death-stares from the stage. Indeed, the fact that the audience derived so much enjoyment from it suggests his suffering was almost certainly for the greater good.

The last act I care to mention was Pig-Man. There was no way I could leave out Pig-Man. This is not because I thought Pig-Man was the best act of the evening, nor the most impressive. This is because Pig-Man absolutely terrified me to the point where his image is etched onto my mind forever. Give someone a cat costume, it makes them instantly sexy. Give someone a pig costume and it conjures apocalyptic images of some sort of Orwellian nightmare. Pig-Man drunk an entire bottle of wine onstage. He ate fire. At one point he proceeded to take out a string of sausages and parade around the stage while employing them as some kind of sexual prop; I’m sure they weren’t real – at least, for the sake of keeping my dinner down, this is what I chose to believe. It was especially bizarre to recollect on Pig-Man considering his act was succeeded by some graceful French Can-Can dancers; a veritably dichotomous rollercoaster through Heaven and Hell.

Other acts including some oral talents with multiple ping pong balls, acrobatics with the type of core strength that leaves me wide-eyed and open jawed and plenty of dancing and merriment to engage the crowds. The three-course meal served during dinner was varied and delicious and served at a leisurely pace throughout the course of the evening. After the show finishes, guests are invited to extend their night of debauchery in Café de Paris’ nightclub where you may dance the night away to hits ranging from the frivolous fifties to present day chart toppers. Just make sure to look out for Pig-Man. You may think the show is over but he will still be here. Lurking in the shadows. Always.

To find out more about Black Cat Cabaret, please click here.