Where the audience doubles over with laughter

La Soiree
Auckland Arts Festival
Spiegeltent, Aotea Square
Until March 25

La Soiree is recommended for those aged 18+ and there is also a cautionary note about the show containing nudity. That only applies to one act which features Ursula Martinez, who seems to have escaped from Croydon after escaping from Spain. She must be Spanish because she has a guitar and says lots of indelicate Spanish words about the sexual and clitoral revolution.

That bit of her appearance is only slightly titillating though. It’s when she starts demonstrating her magic powers when the caution becomes apparent. She has a clever little trick of making a small red handkerchief disappear which she then discovers in various parts of her clothing, as she slowly undresses – skirt, bra, knickers, until she is completely naked and there is only one place on her body it could be lodged.

Her gag is cleverly extended by several of the other performers who suddenly find a small red handkerchief on their person.

None of the male performers strip down as fully as Ursula  but a few of the men manage to expose their six pack sets of abs such as the two pinstriped English gentlemen performing some extraordinary gymnastic feats including cantilevering themselves off each other. The got thunderous applause when their suits and shirts were whisked off to expose those abs and Union Jack underwear.

Some of the acts have been here before but they are as fresh as ever, possibly even a bit smarter and slicker. There is the double-jointed Norwegian”Captain Frodo who manage to thread himself through couple of destrung tennis racquets. The act could have been lifted from Monty Python as he struggles with the racquets, a stool a microphone and microphone stand, all the time writhing like some strange albino insect.

Mario, who manages a reasonable Italian accent, doubles as Freddy Mercury doing a great comic turn as well as singing “Another one bites the dust” while juggling. Later he takes poor Jess, who he has selected from the audience on her first piggybacked unicycle ride.

The whole energetic show races along with fabulous cabaret singers, hilarious comedy, erotic readings, spectacular gymnastics, dramatic trapeze work and dazzling displays. It has the audience doubled over with laughter, rigid with apprehension and wide-eyed with amazement.