CURIOUSLY, but possibly quite deliberately, it was exactly a year ? to
the minute ? since Martin Jacques and his Adrians appeared at the Tron.
The relocation to the West End for this year's visit possibly signifies
little, but the recent rediscovery by Scotland's music promoters of the
Cottier Theatre in all its down-at-heel ramshackleness might have been
engineered with The Tiger Lillies in mind.
The world Jacques,
Huge and Stout inhabit is the same one Jacques Brel and Tom Waits
slouch through, bumping into scabby whores and drunken sailors, where
most folk are packing a blade (for their own protection, ken) and
accidents will happen. It's the kind of place where an accordionist
singing falsetto and virtuosic percussionist Adrian Huge's collection
of toys to supplement his tiny drum kit would not attract a second
glance. I'm not sure you'd want to live there, but it's a privilege to
join them for an hour or so.
Despite requests, there were no
songs about doomed children from Shockheaded Peter, the wildly
successful piece of music theatre they created with the team from
Improbable Theatre, but dead babies still figured. Among other adult
topics covered with childlike zeal were a romantic liaison with a sheep
(inflatable and clockwork models to hand) and the difficulty of
achieving sexual gratification with insects.
Gross and surreal and side-splittingly funny, The Tiger Lillies are
also musically superb and Jacques seems capable of producing an endless
supply of inventive melodies. Then he'll completely surprise you with a
tender, affecting and utterly fresh reading of Stephen Sondheim's Send
in the Clowns. Now that was weird.
