Cocktails with the Diva

Photo Hugh Gilbert

To The Pheasantry in the Kings Road, Chelsea on Tuesday night (1 July 2014) for Cocktails with the Diva, the new show from cabaret singer and opera star Melinda Hughes and Kiss and Tell Cabaret. Hughes, accompanied by her partner in crime pianist Jeremy Limb plus bass and drums, was presenting the show preparatory to a run a the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. With songs by Hughes and Limb, and outspoken musings and witty put-downs from Hughes, the evening was an hour of naughty delight.

The songs varied from pastiche of opera and Weimar cabaret, to edgier cabaret numbers. There were songs sending up the fag of doing the Edinburgh Festival, being an opera singer and how to sing cabaret, plus asides on country house visiting, bad plastic surgery and world affairs. Some of the bons mots were near the knuckle, but that's what cabaret is for isn' it. And there were cocktails too, with an audience competition to get one (and I wish I'd noted down the names and recipes, you will just have to go to the show to find out more).

Cocktails with the Diva runs from 1 to 24 August 2014 at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.