- By Lauren Strickland

It was a curious venue; but then, it was a curious show. Occupying the space that once belonged to a infrequently-visited newsagent, the cheerful light drew people through dark, rainy streets, into a weird and wonderful cabaret extravaganza: Horseface Ethel & Her Marvellous Pigs in Satin.

The show opened with the Brass Knuckle Brass Band, Canberra’s own New Orleans-style street funk band, wending their way through the audience during their first tune. Right away, the crowd knew this show was something special in which they would be made to play a part. A few whispered nervously at the prospect of audience participation.

Horseface Ethel is an experience, one that creeps up on its audience. Before you know what’s happening to you, drag queen Tammy Pax is singing a version of The Little Mermaid‘s ‘Part of Your World’ that will “ruin your childhood”, (I’m pretty sure the Disney version never mentioned fisting); balloon-covered burlesque performer Sparkles is proffering an intense, crazy-eyed declaration of love to a girl foolish enough to sit in the front row; and magician Pablo is dragging slightly out-of-it “volunteers” onto the stage (there’s that audience participation we were all so afraid of) and pouring red cordial in their shoes.

Despite the wide variety of acts, the night had a sense of cohesion, each surprising performance fitting into place alongside one another. The only exception was pianist Marc Robertson: his gravelly tones and discordant playing evoked the show’s namesake (Horseface Ethel is a line from Tom Waits’ song ‘Circus’), but the sombre atmosphere he created seemed out of place with the rest of the line up.

It was the Marvellous Pigs themselves who kept the night together – satin-wrapped girls in grotesque pig masks, who were constantly weaving their way through the audience. Their masked counterpart MC (festival producer Adam Hadley) would remind you every so often that “We’ve lost Ethel, but her Marvellous Pigs in Satin are still with us.”

Each act that took the stage was as unpredictable as the next, and the ambiguity of the program – even when acts were announced, their descriptions didn’t give much away – gave the impression you were no longer inside a forsaken shop; you were tucked in the back corner of someone’s mind, alongside all their creativity, imagination, and crazy. Maybe that someone was Ethel.

Photo by Adam Thomas