Review | ‘Rouge’ is a top-class cabaret experience

Rouge | The Rechabite | Until Sun 18th Dec| ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Cabaret show Rouge has been part of the Fringe World experience several times and has never failed to enthrall audiences. Now it’s arrived for a season at The Rechabite and the show shines on the larger, but still intimate, stage.

The show features the perfect mix of impressive skills, sophistication and funny bawdy humour. A great juxtaposition of pop sounds, opera classics, and comedic numbers. In just an hour this show takes you on a great journey.

There’s no shortage of top-rate cabaret shows touring Australia, and if you see a lot of them in quick succession the performances of trapeze artists, jugglers, acrobats, and other circus skills can become mundane. This show is the one that is a cut-above – you’ll hold your breath, laugh loudly, gasp, shriek, and salivate at what’s put before you.

The rollercoaster ride takes you through moments of great romanticism with lovelorn couples flying through the air while a diva delivers opera classics. Minutes later you’ll be laughing at the different hijinks between the cast, recoiling from whip cracks, and you’ll not be able to take your eyes off the intricate dance with the large ring.

The show oozes sensuality and continually challenges gender roles and our perceptions of masculinity and femininity. It’s filled with unicorns, leather, glitter, and carrots – look we really can’t share too much about the carrots, but you may not look at one the same way next time you’re at Coles or Woolworths.

Head down to The Rechabite and be entertained by singer Michaela Burger, dancer and aerialist Paul Westbrook, Circus artist Jessie Mckibbin, acrobat Sophie Seccombe, acrobat and aerialist Lyndon Johnson and the other very talented cast members.

Catch Rouge at The Rechabite. 

Graeme Watson 

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