The Neon Moon Club

26 | March 19, 2015 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

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THE HEADLINER: CABARET

You’re going to need a glue gun and feathers – a lot of feathers.

ELLA WALKER delves into the fantastical world of cabaret and burlesque as the Cambridge Union prepares to be transformed into a gilded birdcage ball, for one night only

Editor: Ella Walker email: ella.walker@cambridgenews.co.uk

The Neon Moon Club “We had a tortoise with over a thousand Swarovski jewels on it!”

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Neon Moon Burlesque and Cabaret HOT TICKETS WHAT’S ON Club Spring Ball:HOT The Gilded Birdcage, WHAT’S ON TICKETS Cambridge Union Society, Saturday, HOT WHAT’S March TICKETS 28 at 8pm. Tickets £28.50ON (£35 on WHAT’S ONtheneonmoonclub.com.

HOT TICKETS the door) from

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THE HEADLINER: CABARET

“Once I come up with an idea I can’t let it go, it has to be done regardless of how much red tape there is.”

N

IPPLE tassels aren’t for everyone. Then again, how do you know they’re not for you unless you give them a try?

Of course, there aren’t many opportunities for nipple tassels in Cambridge. The Regal isn’t classy enough for them, at Lola Lo’s they’d get tangled up with your flower garland, and Ballare just wouldn’t appreciate the effort you’d gone to.

What you need is a safe place, a creative immersive experience where no-one cares whether you’re head to toe in feathers and glitz, or flirting with your sexier alter ego who, it turns out, does like nipple tassels.

The answer? The Neon Moon Burlesque and Cabaret Club, purveyors of curious vaudevillian parties bedecked with drama and colour and spectacle, where inhibitions are firmly left at home.

Neon Moon’s director Catherine Watling, who I meet over tea (not a fishnet or tassel in sight), knows exactly what she’s doing. She joined the cabaret scene as one half of burlesque duo Cherry & Ruby, resident performers at Cambridge Junction’s now retired Salon Rouge night.

“I was part of the original creative team,” she explains. “I’d never really been involved in burlesque and cabaret before but I’ve always had a big interest in vintage styling and retro clothing. It all came together really quickly at Salon Rouge. Myself and Cherry exploded onto the burlesque and cabaret scene and went international in about six to 12 months, which was really fast.”

As Salon Rouge wound down, finally getting axed, Catherine realised

she wanted to “revisit my roots in digital art and production and create my own show, which wasn’t just a cabaret show, but was an overall experience”.

She decided to blend together cabaret and burlesque with the work of photographers, artists, traders of alternative curios and vintage wear, and so, in 2011 she launched Neon Moon.

“You’re not just inviting people to a black box space for a show. I wanted to find a really unique space, change it into a wonderland and then open the doors into a world where people might not have gone before, in an amazing building that’s been transformed,” Catherine buzzes.

Hosting five major balls a year (Hallowe’en is particularly popular), and having previously worked her magic on Anstey Hall, the Guildhall, Hidden Rooms, Cambridge and The Willow Tree, Bourn, for the upcoming spring ball it’s the esteemed Cambridge Union Society that’s going to be doused in feathers and tonguein-cheek fun.

“The Cambridge Union Society is spectacular and has this atmosphere that is very much a hidden gem in Cambridge I think,” Catherine muses.

“The rooms are steeped in 200 years of debating history; you’ve had people here from Russell Brand to the Dalai Lama and Robert Downey Jr.!”

Each ball has a theme – of course – and this time around it’s birds, hence the title: The Gilded Birdcage.

“Think lavish plumage, show girls, Victorian aviary keepers!” Catherine enthuses. “We encourage our guests to take the theme and then run with it. And they do! It’s amazing. This

time it’s a chance to be fluffy, feathery, frou-frou, or you could be a very strict penguin in your tuxedo, or steampunk-esque Victorian gentlemen.

Dressing up is greatly encouraged, so we say anything goes and let your imagination fly, but at the same time, if you want to just wear something a bit vintage retro, that’s totally fine.”

So, you won’t turn people away at

the door for not being fully trussed up as a peacock?

“No, not unless they haven’t made any effort at all. It’s not the kind of event where you turn up in trainers.”

Point taken: in fact, it’s not the kind of event that allows for casualness or nonchalance of any kind. Catherine takes passion and creativity to extremes in her quest for the perfect

atmosphere and look.

“I’m pretty dogged,” she admits. “Once I come up with an idea I can’t let it go, it has to be done regardless of how much red tape there is. For the last Hallowe’en show we did I had a stack of paper that was this high and I just ploughed through it.”

And the madder the idea, the more keen she is to realise it. “I like to think – ‘outside the box’ is such a cliché – but I do like to think in really weird ways.

“I say: ‘I’d really like to put a Victorian menagerie in that bridal suite. Would you like to help me?’

And [my team] say ‘Yup’, and then they come back and they have suitcases full of bunnies that you can stroke. At our Wonderland Ball we had a tortoise with over a thousand Swarovski jewels on it! We had little birds you could touch and giant land snails. I actually squealed with excitement when I saw that!”

Considering contortionists in the library and hula hoops in the bedroom are a fairly normal occurrence, pinning down the most eccentric and surprising thing they’ve pulled off proves tricky.

“There’s just so many, it’s so difficult. It could possibly be Dr Bendini’s Splendiferous Medicine Show: we had him as our medicine man and he was ‘curing’ himself by knocking nails into his face and swallowing spoons in a lavish stately home bedroom. That was quite crazy. We’ve had a peepshow, we’ve

28 | March 19, 2015 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

THE HEADLINER: CABARET

“It’s all very tongue in cheek, good ol’ knees up entertainment” had mermaids in the bath – but they weren’t crazy, they were just beautiful – one of my favourite acts was at Carousel, our charity show last year at Anstey Hall, Abigail Collins.

She’s a West End singer and compere, and does this act where she gets two members of the audience on stage, climbs onto their shoulders and then does the splits on their shoulders and then she drinks a cocktail and then climbs down – fabulous!”

At the spring ball you can expect Afro Cuban jazz from resident DJ Jazzlord and electro swing from local DJ, Smiley J, classically trained burlesque performer Talulah Blue (you might have spotted her on Britain’s Got Talent), world record holding hula hooper Chi Chi Revolver and Mr B, who, with help from a banjolele, fuses hip hop and the Queen’s English into ‘chap hop’.

I almost completely forget Catherine’s a performer until she goes and splutters: “Feathers that drop from boas are just awful! That’s one of my biggest bug bears!” On the night she’ll be debuting a new vintage showgirl kick line called Les Filles de la Lune.

The driving force behind it all she explains is the fact “there’s nowhere for grown-ups to have fun” any more. Neon Moon aims to change that. “We’ve actually had three generations of the same family at one show which is amazing and we’re really proud of that.

“I think the thing that joins people together is you feel secure in the environment because it’s creative and embracing and you can dress how you want and it’s got that atmosphere of security. So if you want to dress wearing hardly anything at all, you can, or if you want to wear a very strict suit you can.”

Which means yes, prepare to see quite a bit of flesh on show.

“We have quite a lot of nudity.

Racy, but all in good taste,” confirms Catherine.

“It’s all very tongue in cheek, good ol’ knees up entertainment – it’s nothing like a strip club,” she says firmly. “You might see male and female nudity, but it’s an over 18 show so you expect that. You may even see pole dancing, but we wouldn’t ever class it as in the same bracket as a strip club.”

So it’s not seedy?

“No” It’s art?

“Exactly. That’s a massive distinction. It’s about the tease, not the strip.”

Nipple tassels at the ready.

OUTSIDE THE BOX: Neon Moon director Catherine Watling in action