A cult show at the Edinburgh Festival, La Clique makes its London bow at the Hippodrome, hoping to wow audiences with its bizarre, sexy and outrageous mix of cabaret, circus, burlesque and contemporary variety.
Impossible to define, La Clique has an ever-changing line-up, a motley assortment of weird and wonderful acts that on any one evening may include a Norwegian contortionist, a cabaret strip-artist, a Russian hula hoop expert and muppets from Montreal.
Other acts who make appearances with La Clique include London’s very own Miss Behave – a larger than life, PVC-clad cartoon character with a fetish for swallowing pointy objects – and Mario, Queen of the Circus, a veteran of the New York alternative comedy scene who resembles an uber-cool leather-loving reincarnation of Freddie Mercury.
La Clique has found an appropriate home in the Hippodrome, a venue steeped in the history of variety. Constructed by Frank Matcham in 1900 as a water circus, the venue’s early performers included elephants, polar bears and sea lions which frolicked in its 100,000-litre pool. Later, Harry Houdini, Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and The Temptations have all performed there, before Peter Stringfellow turned it into a nightclub in the 1980s.
Now, with La Clique, the Hippodrome is once more open to the public and returned to its former glory, presenting this bizarre and beautiful show that you are unlikely to find anywhere else…
For more about La Clique, read our First Night Feature.