Wonderfully wicked

I saw, without doubt, not only my absolute MIAF highlight on Monday night, but also the most wonderfully wicked cabaret show I've ever witnessed: Kiki and Herb: the Year of Magical Drinking; at North Melbourne's Meat Market Arts House.

Kiki is an aging, alcoholic chanteuse; Herb her equally withered pianist and straight-man - an irony given that both are gay men; performed respectively by vocalist Justin Bond (who may perhaps be familiar to you from John Cameron Mitchell's superb Shortbus) and pianist Kenny Mellman.

Part of the point behind the duo's performance is to demonstrate that cabaret need not be stuck in the first half of the 20th century: as demonstrated with versatility, pathos, wit and flair last night, a medly of Velvet Underground songs, and the songs of Jarvis Cocker and Kate Bush have just as much resonance as Piaf or Brecht - and perhaps, for modern audiences, even more relevance.

Equally, though, the pair delight in skewering and satirising the cliches of cabaret, such as a wonderful routine where an alcohol-sodden Kiki staggered around the stage trying to embody the sinuous sexuality of a panther, with a definite, naughty nod to the likes of an aged Eartha Kitt beyond her prime. Mreeow! Just as Judy Garland turned into a tragic travesty, Kiki slurs, staggers and swears beneath the spotlights; in between joking about rape, child abuse ("I always say, if you weren't abused as a kid, you must have been one hell of an ugly child!") and Hitler. Herb, meanwhile, mutters and giggles at the keyboard. Both rise to the occasion when levity is no longer required, twisting laughs into gasps of admiration and disbelief as they take a song like The Eagles' 'Hotel California' and turn it into a magnificently melancholic gothic melodrama.

They were also capable of deliciously dark wit; jokes that teetered on the edge of totally wrong (such as Kiki's comment about Qantas loosing her luggage, only to find her suitcase floating in a Sydney pond a few days later, the body of a dead toddler contained within: looking around I saw smiles sag into sickly frowns, and convulsions of laughter transform into cross-armed frowns at such a point, while elsewhere in the room others shrieked with mirth).

I hooted, I giggled, and I was moved to tears at various times throughout the night. Had I been more financial I would have raced off to the festival's Artists' Lounge after the show in the hope that Bond and Mellman might have materialised, so that I shower them with praise and alcohol. Instead, together with Josh, and my poor tired housemate, who fell asleep on more than one occasion at our table while steadfastly claiming afterwards he enjoyed the show, I walked home through the darkened streets of Melbourne-town, thence to bed; a wry and wicked smile still flickering about my lips when I thought about what I'd just heard and seen.

For presenting such a magnificently macabre and magical evening as part of your third festival, Kristy Edmunds, I salute you - and I shall kiss you the next time I see you!!