A band of bohemians pitching up in Kensington would normally have the locals reaching for a bottle of smelling salts. Happily, the only thing being upended here is expectation, as The Lost Estate slips its latest slice of elegant decadence discreetly into this West London enclave.
These specialists in theatrical fine dining have quietly become a staple on the capital’s entertainment menu. The Great Christmas Feast, their annual one-man take on Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, has been around for eight years and, in that time, many of their competitors have fallen away. The ever-inventive Gingerline is no more, having been dissolved just a couple of weeks ago while the fabulous Batman-themed Monarch Row has also closed. After almost a century of high society hijinks, Piccadilly’s Cafe de Paris — home to Reuben Kaye’s themed cabaret extravaganzas — served its last cocktails during the pandemic; Spanish nightclub operators Lio re-opened the iconic venue but last year abandoned London for more hospitable climes. You can hardly blame them.
Whichever way one looks at it, Chat Noir is a bold statement of intent. Little expense has been spared to recreate the infamous 19th-century Parisian hangout. Even if there’s an overall sense that this is Montmartre as seen through English eyes, there is much to admire. Clever use has been made of Théophile Steinlen's 1896 poster with detailed artwork everywhere you look with the dark feline woven into the seating and seen all around the walls and up on the ceiling. A talented five-piece band has been embedded into the central platform who fill this immense ballroom with riotous sounds. Best of all, top notch vaudeville talent has been recruited to add a dash of real boho vérité to the proceedings.
The night is split into three segments: Art, Absinthe and Anarchy. That neatly matches up to the number of courses served (if this show was about an Italian family Christmas, they would have needed half a dozen segments and an epilogue to cover the carb coma, but I digress). The food is authentic to the theme: carnivores are served up a charcuterie board, a slab of tender poulet and a wonderfully sharp tarte au citron. There are (of course) vegetarian and vegan alternatives and the kitchen is more than capable of handling a wide range of food allergies and intolerances given sufficient notice.
For the most part, there’s no storyline as such. Instead there is a series of well-executed sequences introduced by Joe Morrow. With his dark mop of unruly curls encroaching on an intense thousand-drink stare, he plays to perfection Rodolphe Salis, the man who founded and held sway over the salon-slash-music hall. A real showman from crown to corns, Morrow blends drag queen swagger and earthy banter with consummate ease. His gags are occasionally pure fromage but, for the main part, he is a genuine firecracker of a host lighting up the dim room with wily asides and black wit.
Morrow is accompanied by an experienced crew of cabaret reprobates, all of whom have noteworthy moments. Magic Circle member Neil Kelso (also a renowned pianist as well as the writer and director of Dead On Time (an immersive murder mystery show held on a moving train) stabs a chosen card out of the air with a sabre, mime Alexander Luttley joins forces with burlesquer Coco Belle for an exquisitely choreographed dream sequence while, as the singing Muse, Issy Wroe Wright does for the French accent what Dick Van Dyke, Don Cheadle and Karl Urban have done for Cockney. She should perhaps be grateful we are not particularly close to Calais; people have gone to the guillotine for less.
.jpg?format=auto&width=1400)
And here’s a sentence I never thought I’d type: Chat Noir somehow becomes more memorable after the obligatorily stiff glass of absinthe is served and downed. Up to that point, it’s all a bit polite and safe, like a wedding where the bride’s parents are paying and nobody wants to wake the oldies or scare the priest. Just before the whirring sound of Salis’s body turning in his grave threatens to become audible, the rug is pulled and a wild adventure begins.
To describe the last third as anarchic does not in any way do justice to the singular writing, movement and acting craft on display. The final segment turns the genteel nature of what has been presented thus far on its head and then shows it the door in a brusque manner. Morrow transforms from louche host to messianic emperor in the blink of an eye, his head adorned by a mad flowing crown and his coronation overseen by Kelso’s lewd priest. Around them, a royal court springs up containing all types of hilarious lunacy.
Then comes a version of Bizet’s Carmen that’s completely and gloriously unhinged, with Coco Belle far from coquettish in the lead role and Wroe Wright charging about as a bullfighter who actually looks like she could handle real livestock. The band (Guy Button, Peteris Sokolovskis, Alex Ullman, Will Fry and Áine McLoughlin) crank things up with toe-tapping gusto, while the jokes finally settle into no-holds-barred adult territory. The plot gets twisted into shapes Bizet never dared, until the ending lands a welcome punchline: Carmen dumps the entire gallery of preening posers seeking her hand and opts for herself. It’s the ending the 19th century didn’t have the nerve to write, and one that the 21st century deserves.
The direction is curiously indifferent to its own promise of immersive vaudeville. Yes, the ballroom’s scale nods to Salis’s Le Chat Noir in its later, grander incarnation, but homage should really only go so far. Staging in the round demands a choreography of attention, and here the production struggles to democratise its pleasures.
That matters less in Lost Estate’s more musical outings like 58th Street or narrative outings such as The Great Christmas Feast, where being a spectator is a perfectly enjoyable way to enjoy the night and the ears do as much work as the eyes. Cabaret, however, trades in complicity and — when not occasionally wandering around the room — the cast’s attention is naturally focussed on those seated immediately around them; in the outer circle, I saw and heard everything but didn’t always feel engaged.
Then there’s the familiar tyranny of sightlines: Kelso is a deft magician but watching him do his masterful conjuring from the back is not quite the same experience as seeing him from the front. Distance dilutes delight and, from the edges, one observes rather than participates. For immersive theatre and cabaret (both of which live or die on inclusion), that is a structural flaw.
Finishing on an unexpected high, this redemptive last stretch more than makes up for the decently indecent but vaguely underwhelming acts that came before it. It’s a pity that only when the aesthetic shackles of the Art and Absinthe segments come off that something true to the unruly spirit of cabaret manifests. This, after all, is an art form that has always sprinted past accepted social boundaries with aplomb and without apology. If the plan is to evolve Chat Noir, it would do well to lean more fully into what made Salis’s creation endure, embracing the very lawlessness that defines it.
Chat Noir continues at The Lost Estate.
Photo credit: Nick Ray
Reader Reviews
Videos
