Tiger Lillies’ Christmas Carol: A Victorian Gutter
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre
 

ONE of the most difficult things about lockdown was, of course, being deprived of the Tiger Lillies’ annual dose of macabre live grotesquery. If you have not had the depraved pleasure of seeing them before, think less gig and more interwar Berlin cabaret show.

Heavily influenced by Brechtian theatrics and central European street music, their shows typically involve the musical unfolding of a deliciously dark tale, generally revolving around the tortuous descent of some poor sod or other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetnP7EEzWY

So Dickens’s classic tale of redemption was in some ways an unusual choice for this year’s outing, its uptight Victorian moralising somewhat at odds with songwriter Martin Jacques’s usual celebrations of the shunned and the wicked, whose narrative voice is much more at home revelling in sin and its consequences than attempting to alter their course.

The story’s aesthetic, however, suited them perfectly. The set is decked out with a splendid stylised London backdrop by Jonny Dixon, along with austere wooden furniture and dozens of candles (fake, natch — this is twisted kitsch, not period drama).

Taking to the stage in his trademark bowler hat, Jacques is flanked by drummer Budi Butenop and multi-instrumentalist Adrian Stout in full Victorian finery, top hats, capes and frilly shirts, all three of them looking like they were born 200 years too late.

Butenop’s painted eyebrows give him the permanently forlorn air of a silent comedian, while Jacques’s sneering black lipstick neatly accentuates his look of perpetual disdain.

Stout makes a quintessential Scrooge, veering from mean-spirited contempt (“The prison and the workhouse are the only charities I support!”) to snivelling wretch with graceful ease.

The music is as glorious as ever, whether mournful laments or upbeat gypsy-tinged jaunts, played on everything from singing saw to theremin, jaw harp and grand piano.

They are at their best when Jacques’s narrator gets to unleash his characteristic impish vindictiveness. Songs such as Tuberculosis — its chorus simply Tiny Tim’s growingly hideous, hacking cough, or Christmas Future, in which Scrooge witnesses how “no-one gives a shit” about his death — give him free rein to revel in the arbitrary sadism of cruel fate.

Indeed, he is visibly disgusted when Scrooge changes his ways, the self-righteous sap. More of a pared-down performance compared to the extravagance of some of the previous shows, this is nonetheless a twisted treat for fans and newbies alike.

For current tour dates visit: tigerlillies.com/tour