Sunday 29 July 2018

The Menagerie Variety Show


The Menagerie Variety Show took centre stage at The Opera House last night. Described as "the the world of the odd, intriguing and strangely compelling", I can assure you that the performances and performers were all that and more. The theatre was packed full of weird, wild and wonderful people. Even the audience dressed up and I felt decidedly bland and unadorned by not wearing any bling of my own.

The Menagerie Variety Show is an extension of the Mengarie show on at the Fringe Bar every two months. There was a huge range of entertainment on stage. Standout performances included mesmerising aerial routines by Imogen Stone and Victor Victorious, and burlesque by Bonita Danger Doll. Wellington samba group Batucada provided intermission entertainment, and then there were singers, a poette, jugglers, a contortionist, a scarily accurate Donald Trump impersonator, a French cancan troupe, a yodelling, opera singing accordionist performing feminist songs and an awful lot of olives.

Super-organiser Rachel Rouge has two more Menagerie shows this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if she is already conjuring up plans for next year's variety show.