Review by Steve Bennett

Decent magic tricks are packed up in an unedifying stream of cheap, lazy sex gags in this largely wit-free character-cabaret hybrid.

Cassandra is an irritating Jewish show business broad who supposedly learnt to do tricks when locked up in prison. Originally a bit clumsy with her conjuring – in which she is assisted by a camp German called Hans – it later turns out she can actually do it pretty well.

But it’s comedically very limp as she talks about bleaching her pubes and anal sex or sings about her vagina flaps. When she gets out the chains for an escapology illusion, there’s lots of predictable gags about getting it from an S&M shop. And her magic wand? It’s a dildo. Of course it is.

Such juvenile smut never conjures up many laughs, leaving the feeling that an act that at its very best should be a five-minute bit of filler on a burlesque night has got ambitions her dumbed-down comedy talents cannot deliver. Claire Boyce Lenahan, the woman under the clown-curled wig, could surely try a lot harder than this.

Review date: 31 Aug 2015
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just the Tonic at the Caves (Salvation Rooms)