Review of his political anti-cabaret act at the Soho Theatre

Yesterday’s Westminster Abbey service in honour of Prince Philip was conducted by one David Hoyle. Not the same David Hoyle, mind, who took to the Soho Theatre stage later that evening in a dress made of teddy-bears, vertiginous heels and make-up that might have been applied by paint roller, such was its subtlety.

This David Hoyle – the avant-garde cabaret performer formerly known as The Divine David – melds art-school films and serious social commentary with an anti-drag show that deliberately puts politics first. He is something of an acquired taste, which I must admit I didn’t acquire, although plenty in the auditorium did.

His social commentary is grimly real. He tells us of his rat-infested flat, the consequence of an impoverished life that comes as a consequence of being a challenging underground artist for more than three decades.

Whereas many a stand-up makes light of their impecunious straits in this world of toxic capitalism, Hoyle counters any flippancy by performing in front of  ghastly footage of the rodents scavenging and fighting. His bluntness elicits some laughs, and his affected speech patterns, often pausing mid phrase, tickle some.

Elsewhere, he sombrely reads out poignant prose about the savagery of homophobia (written not by him but American performance artist David Wojnarowicz) and lectures on the ‘cognitive dissonance’ that has swathes of the population believing a political narrative that isn’t true.

The opening dirge song, with its chorus of ‘I am unworthy’ to discordant music and an image of his skull rotating jerkily, sets the scene. Later, a particularly indicative segment has him earnestly doing rhythmic gymnastics in front of footage of war and factory-farm cruelty. How irrelevant the distracting frippery of entertainment is the obvious metaphor, but that message also puts the dampeners on providing much fun, even though he’s well capable of it if he wishes. Cheerily dismissive crowd work is a forte.

But when he seeks laughs it’s more laboured than the unashamedly arty segments or passionate polemics. Finding an advert for a  disease-addled cat also called David tickles him, but reading out the sizeable description in full, with little more comic input than a metaphorically raised eyebrow, seems uncharacteristically slight.

There’s an intriguing thread about being welcomed in a Blackpool bar as a sanctuary from the brutal world outside  for a nonconformist gay man in the early 1980s, but Hoyle doesn’t cling particularly tightly to that as he proceeds from one social ill to the next, only to end back in this safe place at the end.

This downbeat cabaret is an artistically distinctive way for Hoyle to share his pointed political worldview. But while interesting, the space this show occupies between polemic, art and entertainment means it never quite feels it has succeeded in any of them. Though from the warm response he got, others would beg to differ.

Review date: 30 Mar 2022
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Soho Theatre