There’s no denying that, over the past decade, cabaret has evolved from a naughty niche artform into a hot ticket. Bawdy comics, men in dresses, ladies out of dresses, singers, dancers, mimes and more – cabaret is the umbrella artform that lets them all in and simply tells an audience to expect a very live, very entertaining evening. However, despite its popularity, there’s a definite career ceiling to cabaret and we’re struggling to find that next stage of evolution.
People often ask what makes something cabaret. Some argue it simply means the bar is still open while the act is on stage and in many ways that’s right; cabaret grew out of the ashes of music hall and still holds true to many of those traditions, but singers, dancers and comics can now find their own performance spaces. The artists who come under the “cabaret” umbrella are usually there because they don’t quite fit anywhere else.
It’s this variety that made me fall in love with cabaret; where else can this band of misfits get together and it make sense? But there’s something holding us back from having a logical next step in the artform’s development. Those who work on the cabaret scene love it, but an industry needs more than passion to survive. It needs greater exposure and more opportunities for its performers.
One of my long running cabaret gigs is as host/compere at the Finger in the Pie showcase at Madame Jojo’s. I introduce acts from all areas of cabaret – burlesque, musicians, character comics, drag queens, surrealists, freak show acts and more. All the performers, despite their variety, have something in common: they work from job to job, juggling performing with a “proper” line of work and constantly finding rogue sequins in inappropriate places!
Dressing room conversation often turns to where’s good to work and who to contact to become a cabaret artist full time. I always advise that people befriend venues and produce their own nights if they want to see some serious money – otherwise, it’s just a few quid per gig. In short, the performers need to get more involved in the business of cabaret.
Think business
As cabaret evolves into a far more sophisticated and sustainable artform, the artists are being forced to “think business” if they want to keep going. They forge careers through creating more consumable and repeatable formats for their work: touring shows, monthly mixed bill nights or developing a few five minute sets into an entire evening. This evolution has been supported and reinforced by the emergence of venues that want to support sustainable cabaret: the Cabaret Room at Soho Theatre, the London Wonderground and the forthcoming Mimetic Festival – not to mention all of the non-performance venues adding some cabaret to their clubs and bars to cash in on the trend.
The plethora of performance opportunities around for young artists is brilliant, but we must go further. We need to look for ways to raise the profile of cabaret to wider audiences and find a way for cabaret to transfer outside of the live arena, because there is a career ceiling that, to be blunt, is well under the level of comics, actors, singers or other performers. There is currently no logical career progression beyond the existing cabaret circuit: a new festival here, a new venue there, but nothing that my dad would call a proper career path. We still need to find the holy grail of cabaret achievement: a sustainable career.
Perhaps we need to look back into music hall and variety shows; put modern line-ups like La Clique on tour to different cities around the UK, not just international capitals. But we also need to look forward, exploring a way to bring more cabaret into TV, film or even the radio market.
Cabaret on TV
Let me be clear: when I say a format for cabaret to work on TV, I don’t mean a chance to “showcase” acts on talent shows or star in documentaries and docu-soaps (think Britain’s Got Talent and Ru Paul’s Drag Race). Instead, I mean serious, new formats that utilise the skills and variety of cabaret for a TV audience.
Reality TV uses cabaret acts for spectacle, but once the series is over, these acts don’t have a performance opportunity that is comparable to where they’ve just been crowned a “winner”. Essentially, these shows are making cabaret “stars” who have nowhere to go other than back to the circuit where most of them came from.
We need pioneers to help push forward into new forms and lead the way for future cabaret performers. Every other show on TV has a guest panel of comics, so why can’t a drag queen tell the latest Apprentice contestant: “You’re fired”? Or a mime taste the cakes on the Bake Off’s An Extra Slice? The answer is usually that we aren’t in the same network because of cabaret’s lack of presence outside of the live space – the classic chicken-and-egg of TV success.
In many ways, I’m contradicting myself. A pre-requisite of cabaret is that it is live, so how can that transfer to TV? There are, however, glimmers of where it works, for example, when Lily Savage presented Blankety Blank (the contestant’s awkward fear as she interviewed them was pure cabaret). Or when Camille O’Sullivan performed on Later with Jools Holland (yes, she is a singer, but the performance was true to her cabaret roots).
I’m throwing the gauntlet down for the major networks to create a performance space and give us a job. The hard reality is that, if we don’t start working towards a bigger platform for cabaret, the artists may not be able to keep making the work. Theatre is reaching new audiences thanks to the innovation of broadcast services like NT Live. It’s this leap of faith the cabaret world needs.
As yet, no one has made it. But I have faith that someone will, eventually.
Michael Twaits is an actor and cabaret artist, who you can follow on Twitter @MichaelTwaits
His latest show, The Libertine Has Left the Building, is at Mimetic Festival from 25-29 November
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