Camden Fringe 2009
David Mills House Party
David Mills and Michael Roulston
Venue: Etcetera Theatre
Festival: Camden Fringe
Low Down
House Party, a crazy cabaret concept from David Mills set at a pumping London house party uses a lot of spoken word peppered with the occasional song to deliver a comedic hour of fun laugh out loud cabaret at the Etcetera Theatre as part of the Camden Fringe.
Review
David Mills’ unusual mix of wry tongue in cheek humour, coupled with an exceptionally talented musical director in Michael Roulston ensures his show House Party is cabaret at its witty best. He calls on the audience and if they don’t call back he pushes to the very cliff edge and yet somehow gets away with it. Mills is a genius when it comes to improvisation and off the cuff humour and it is the sort of show that could be seen more than once and should be to garner the full experience. There is so much to take in first time round.
We find ourselves in one of those House Parties everyone wants to be at but only some are invited to. Mills manages to play himself and without actually seeing them a bunch of other people are milling around at the party as he cracks jokes with them, flirts, and dances inter-dispersed with cutting commentary directed to the audience ensuring we are all a part of the action. The audience are sometimes in invited in and sometimes just sit on the edge watching the action unfold. Clever lighting and an absolutely phenomenal musical director give Mills his edge.
Queen of harsh audience quips and increasingly funny one liners, the party peaks and dips and swings with Mills taking centre of attention, but Roulston showing off his singing talents to the audience’s great delight.
Within the first moment we feel like we are whirled into David Mills’ chaotic world. He starts out with it feeling like a normal cabaret set up. Piano and MD stage left and Mills dead centre with a mike and a stool and he is introduced as being all the way from Tower Hamlets and the London centric (and if you know London) often hilarious references continue to pop up throughout the show. City Lit courses, Giraffe, world beat food, the O2 centre, Girls Aloud and My London in ES Magazine featuring Kate Hudson and her tragic ‘my London’. If cabaret’s your game then this show will push the boat out on the concept.
The whirlwind hour has my date and I
