This is a warning.

The acts range from noir burlesque dance by Miss Kerryx, to manlesque and puppet-like circus acts from Defy, to expressionistic burlesque from the show’s creator, Venus Vamp. We were guided through the night by acting MC Madam Natalia, better known as Mama, since the usual hostess – dead, German transvestite “Blue Angel” – was hit by a bus and “spread like jam on the road”. As you watch, Mama skillfully guides you through your (often confused) feelings, bringing the underground to the surface for a brief moment, and asking you to “forget what the world wants you to be”.For a fill-in, Mama had me fooled. Her quick witted, femme fatale character kept even the worst of hecklers in line, and her mix of dry innuendo and powerful singing made for the perfect segue between the acts, which were both tantalising and shocking.

But is it strange to say I got bored of strip teases? It feels odd to go to Anything Goes Cabaret and say I wanted more, but at the beginning that’s how it felt. Their promo had shown acts of burlesque contortion and expressionistic dance with non-PG themes, and while what there was of this was expertly done, at the start it felt as though it wouldn’t be enough. But as the show progressed the acts became more intriguing, so by the end I’d forgotten my doubts.

Red Bennies – a cabaret bar, rather than a theatre – is a fantastic venue, with front row seats if you want to be in on the action (and I mean in on it), or a mezzanine if you prefer to be far away from the performers’ roaming hands. A show you won’t have seen before, it takes hold of your senses, rips you out of your comfort zone, and then makes you question your own morality. Recommended, but watch out for Mama – she’s on the prowl.

And once you get your head around that, it is a twisted homage.

Pirate Rhapsody, Mermaid Requiem recounts the experiences of love of two people consumed by loneliness. Crude, debauched, and at times overwhelming, Bradson’s characters are a strange mix of fragility and disdain. They feel like they’ve been brought straight out of a time of pirates and sailors, and yet they understand the modern world better than most of us.

Haunting and desperate, Bradson’s songs are pure poetry. A mixture of bawdy cabaret and hypnotic revelation, he charges through the lives of his characters, leaving you struggling to catch up. His monologues – again, shameless smut coupled with the longing admissions of a broken soul – are sometimes too fast to follow, but the raw emotion lingers, to be understood on some deep, primal level in us all that we’d like to pretend doesn’t exist.

Bradson’s audience interaction proves his quick wit is not just because of strict rehearsal. His general insults and crude commentary are punchily delivered, but there were a couple of times where his more individualised humour went too far for my liking. Sexually crude and overwhelming in one instance, it makes an audience feel uneasy, wondering if they’re next, which can detract from the experience. To their credit, the affected audience members handled it beautifully, although two people up the back did walk out.

That being said, most of his interaction is brilliant, particularly his insistence as the mermaid that members of the audience spray him regularly with water to ensure he doesn’t dry out.

Entertaining, often hilarious and yet also deeply moving, Bradson delivers, in flawless character, a performance that’s poetically, lyrically scripted – even in its crudeness – and somehow manages to give us new views on love in a modern (and older) world. You just might want to sit up the back.

Held in a stylised, licensed venue (steampunk meets art deco meets graffitied alley), the play opens with the main character Adam attempting to write his physics essay. Enter Time – the self-assured and emphatic wife of Space. Deciding to interfere and help Adam out, she tears a hole in the fabric of reality, letting loose the nine components of reality into the bodies of Adam’s friends, and then leaves Adam to put everything back in order.

The characterisation was tight, and Vanessa Elliott held a commanding presence as Time. I kept searching for evidence of the replaced cast member, who left the production just weeks before opening night, but the integration of the new actor was seamless.

At times I felt that the acting fell slightly into stereotype as the nerd humour was, by necessity, aimed at a level where the average person could appreciate the joke. But I think that the majority of audiences will be thankful for that inclusion, and there was still enough in-humour to satisfy the hardcore. The audience approved, all but cackling at the characters’ regular quips and puns, which weren’t just funny, but clever, with Relativity’s sleazy cracking onto Light in his attempts to catch up to her speed, and the characters’ “Wi fives” (where the hands don’t meet). There was also a highly inventive use of shadow puppetry.

I’d like to see what the company could do with sixty minutes instead of thirty as the plot did leave me wanting more. The family-style bickering of the components of the universe ran off a clever script, and it would have been good to see more of that interaction, as well as with the modern world.

But overall, A Stitch in Time not only made you laugh, but made you feel smarter for doing it.