THE LAST DAYS OF MANKIND

The band is currently touring a 90 minute concert version of the music with accompanying projections by Mark Holthusen.

Award winning band The Tiger Lillies are bringing a new show based on the First World War masterpiece The Last Days of Mankind to Tipi Am Kanzleramt. Inspired by the anti war satire created by Austrian writer Karl Kraus, the songs show a society marching to self destruction. 

The gypsy punk cult cabaret stars say the themes covered by the work are more relevant than ever in the light of the war in Ukraine.

Songwriter and singer Martyn Jacques says: “Kraus talks about all the horrible things that happen in war. The starvation of the poor and the children, the deserters running away and being executed. It is all very poignant.

“The nastiest people start to control everything and petty bureaucrats wield power. It’s a nightmare. “In many ways the war in Ukraine is more like World War Two than World War One because Putin is the aggressor. But you also have the propaganda - with people saying the Ukrainians are like Nazis which just isn’t true.”

Martyn Jacques said: “We have spent a lot of time in Ukraine and we are very upset about what is happening there.”

The Tiger Lillies, who have a huge following in Russia, have also made the decision not to tour there since the outbreak of war. Members of the group have collaborated with Ukrainian band The Hypnotunez and Ukrainian animators to produce an anti war video which lambasts Putin and his dreams of glory. The 22 songs in the production were originally written for a theatre production of Kraus’ epic masterpiece which was performed in Scotland, Germany and Poland in 2018.

One of the original cast members, Antonina Romanova, is currently fighting on the front line in Ukraine. Antonina Romanova, speaking from Ukraine said: “I thank the Tiger Lillies for their constant support in these difficult times. This is very important for us and for me personally. You guys are incredible.”

Among the songs written by Jacques in response to The Last Days of Mankind are Die for your Country, War is Not Fair and the beautiful A Million Martyrs to Love.

Karl Kraus’ The Last Days of Mankind is an epic play written in Vienna during World War One. The text includes overheard conversations, newspaper reports and political discussions - reflecting the conversations happening among coffee house radicals during the war.

The entire play would take 24 hours to perform and was said by its author to be impossible to stage. A four hour theatre version, starring the Tiger Lillies, originating in Scotland, was directed by John Paul McGroarty and Yuri Birte Anderson and featured young actors from 11 European countries, including Ukraine.

Martyn Jacques said: “I’d never heard of Karl Kraus before being asked to take part in the project at Leith Theatre in Scotland. It is a remarkable piece of work and it inspired me to write a lot of new songs.”

As a songwriter Jacques is extraordinarily prolific and often writes songs in response to current events. During Covid he wrote two albums about the worldwide pandemic, the fear the suffering and the death. He has also written several satirical songs about President Putin and the war in Ukraine.

With their signature blend of chanson, opera and gypsy music the London-based Tiger LIllies defy definition. The group revel in the bawdy vaudeville traditions of prostitution, opium dens and the seedy life of the street musician.

The group began in 1989, winning two Olivier awards and a Grammy in 2002 for their work Shock Headed Peter.

The music for Last Days of Mankind was originally featured in a theatrical production of Last Days of Mankind at Leith Theatre in 2018, co-directed by John Paul McGroarty and Yuri Birte Anderson.

REVIEWS:

“The strong sense of pain and injustice at the heart of the lyrics is palpable, even though it’s veiled in dark humour. The instrumental execution is flawless and it creates an atmosphere of melancholy so imbued with emotion that it leaves audience members visibly stirred.”

★★★★★ The Upcoming

Full review

“Kraus' The Last Days Of Mankind fits in well with Jacques' main subject areas: corruption, sex, filth, prostitutes and the depth of humanity's darkest depravities and perversities. With obvious allusions to Brechtian works like The Threepenny Opera, the songs here draw heavily on the source material's topics - albeit with no Martians - and his trademark snarl and falsetto voice are well-deployed whether sat at the piano or grinding away on his accordion.”

★★★★ Broadway World

 Full review

“His sometimes eerie falsetto singing voice carries us back into that bleak period when the world seemed to be marching into oblivion.”

British Theatre Guide

Full review

“ At the heart of this is the Tiger Lillies, the pasty-faced junkyard cabaret trio led by Martyn Jacques, who becomes a grotesquely captivating MC of sorts. Their newly composed set of narrative vignettes add an even darker layer of malevolence to a show that leaves its audience quietly shellshocked by such a mighty theatrical feat.”

Herald Scotland (on Last Days of Mankind, the Leith Theatre production)

 “ Martyn Jacques is a charismatic focus. Trudging between his piano and accordion like a man weighed down by supernatural dread – yet his voice is a molten cascade. The execution is impeccable throughout. Phenomenal.”

★★★★★ — The Guardian

ONE PENNY OPERA

Based on the seminal 18th century Beggar’s Opera by John Gay and Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera, the band present their own version of this wildly entertaining story. A huge inspiration to Martyn Jacques, The Tiger Lillies founder, the story is presented as a song cycle swarming with highwaymen, thieves, jailors, pimps and prostitutes – a world of greed, crime, poverty, inequality and outrageous comedy, where the politicians are just as corrupt as the lowlife below them.

The world of The Tiger Lillies is dark, peculiar and varied, with moments of deep sadness, cruel black humour and immense beauty. This unique, Grammy nominated, Brechtian street opera trio tour the world playing concerts and theatre shows such as The Tiger Lillies Christmas Carol, The Ancient Mariner and the West End hit Shockheaded Peter. Their songs cover all the dark aspects of life, from prostitution and drug addiction to violence and despair. Always with a touch of twisted humor and sharp irony The Tiger Lillies point an implicit accusing finger back at us: what on Earth are we doing, laughing at this stuff? Their music is a mixture of pre-war Berlin cabaret, anarchic opera and gypsy music, echoing the voices of Bertolt Brecht and Jacques Brel. The Tiger Lillies shock, amuse and entertain in a postmodern vaudeville way, with their inimitable in-yer-face shows, where no limit should be taken for granted.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

IN THE TIGER LILLIES’ CHRISTMAS CAROL: A VICTORIAN GUTTER, THE POST-PUNK PIONEERS PRESENT A DARK MUSICAL TWIST ON

CHARLES DICKENS’ CLASSIC.

The trio dissect and reassemble the story that everyone knows to shine a light on the poverty and depravity laid bare on the cold London streets. The show premiered at the Southbank Centre in London during Christmas 2021. It received 4 and 5 star reviews and was widely acclaimed. The world of The Tiger Lillies is dark, peculiar and varied, with moments of deep sadness, cruel black humour and immense beauty. Their songs cover all the dark aspects of life, from prostitution and drug addiction to violence and despair.

The music is a mixture of pre-war Berlin cabaret, anarchic opera and gypsy music. Part Grand Guignol, part seedy vaudeville, part grunge cabaret, The Tiger Lillies never cease to shock, surprise and entertain. The Grammy-nominated band’s previous concerts and theatre shows have included Edgar Allan Poe’s Haunted Palace, The Ancient Mariner and the Olivier Award-winning Shockheaded Peter.

“Our musical version of Christmas Carol strips the story back to its fundamental narrative elements of social inequality and the ever present fear of death due to poverty and starvation. A haunting soundtrack of minimalist instruments capture the cold Victorian streets of London but also show the hope of human connection over greed and ignorance. — Adrian Stout

“There is so much to admire in the writing of Charles Dickens. He tells wonderful stories . A Christmas Carol is one of the best. So writing a song cycle to tell the story was easy. The fact that Dickens characters are filled with insight into all our frailties and faults made that songwriting even more enjoyable. What’s so great about this story is Scrooge and his journey from selfish monster to regretful benefactor. It’s made comedic by the fact the three ghosts of past present and future literally terrify him into transformation. What a writer he was! — Martyn Jacques

CREATIVE TEAM:

Creator and writer Martyn Jacques

Additional dialogue / sound design Adrian Stout

Production designer Phil Eddolls (Phleds)

Lighting designers Jo Palmer, Nao Nagai and Joel Stanners

Scenic artist Jonny Dixon

Scrooge and Bob Cratchit costumes Cathy Eddolls

Ghosts, puppets Phil Eddolls

Stage Manager Darragh MacNeill

Sound Johnny Nolan

All songs written by Martyn Jacques

The Tiger Lillies

Martyn Jacques narration, vocals, accordion, piano, ukulele

Adrian Stout Scrooge, double bass, musical saw, theremin,

guitar, vocals

Budi Butenop percussion

DEVIL’S FAIRGROUND

London’s the Tiger Lillies are celebrating 30 years of their provocative brand of avant-garde punk-cabaret with their symphonic latest album, Devil’s Fairground (out 15 February). Themes of junkies, prostitutes and all forms of vice continue to make up the majority of their work, while frontman Martyn Jacques has a knack for finding beauty in the macabre and grotesque, like Poe, Lovecraft and Edward Gorey before him. The band have performed all over the world, making their way from humble beginnings busking in the streets and playing bar-rooms to performing in massive concert halls and opera houses. They’ve also shared bills with St. Vincent, John Cale, Patti Smith, David Byrne and many others, and have built a legion of devoted fans including film director Terry Gilliam, the late Robin Williams and Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Devil’s Fairground takes the listener on a tour through the sordid underbelly of post-soviet Prague, where Jacques’s eye finds poetry in legless drunks, bored hookers and fatherless children. When the Tiger Lillies first began touring Europe in the early ‘90s, Prague was a place filled with exceptional hedonism. The Velvet Revolution had tossed out communism and separated Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia without a drop of blood being spilt, but the lost years between communism and capitalism had left a vacuum and the Tiger Lillies spent their time there cavorting with the artists and freaks. The band returned to Prague in September 2018 to record Devil’s Fairground live with a full orchestra, channelling the band’s experiences in the city between the fall of the Soviet Union and the influx of Western tourists.

However, that debauchery and partying all came on the heels of extraordinary oppression - stories about which Jacques absorbed from friends and acquaintances and used as inspiration for Devil’s Fairground. Standout track “Free” is a klezmer-tinged gothic cabaret ballad that recounts the story of an outspoken Democrat under the Soviet Union who spent a decade in a Siberian prison camp for his beliefs, and the impact his absence had on his daughter. The harsh realities of Soviet life are unsettlingly juxtaposed with Jacques’s beautiful, flitting, airy falsetto and the band's cinematic orchestration.

One of Devil’s Fairground’s other notable cuts, “King of the Gutter”, is an appropriately sombre waltz about an alcoholic double-amputee nearing the end of his life in Prague, reflecting on the life of excess and vice that led him to presiding over the gutter from his wheelchair-throne.

These seedy character studies make Devil’s Fairground a fascinating snapshot of both post-Soviet Prague and the connections Jacques makes with people. He says, “I don’t want to write about ‘boy-meets-girl-and-everybody’s-happy’. I write about life on the street. I come from the streets. I’m not going to start writing about white middle class people. I’ve always had friends who were drunks, junkies and prostitutes - I’ve always been interested in people of character.”

The Tiger Lillies are Jacques (vocals, accordion, piano, uke), Adrian Stout (double bass, theremin, singing saw) and Jonas Golland (drums, percussion). Looking forward, there’s no end in sight for The Tiger Lillies.

CORRIDO DE LA SANGRE

A Mexican setting provides the backdrop for this brand new cycle of songs and its stage show, as the Tiger Lillies embark on a Latin vacation that takes a turn for the worst.

An orphan, barely twelve years old, in a dusty, one-horse town... the beautiful Maria, and the drug baron who really shouldn’t have crossed her... strange, furtive rituals and mysterious characters who may be alive, or not, amidst the wild din of the Day of the Dead that swirls all around them... ¿que pasa? What can it all mean...? If only there was a glimpse of poncho and the stench of an evil-smelling cheroot we would know where we were, even a pocket-watch or a distant whistle on the wind... but no, that sound, it’s like Hell’s house-band is playing, and so it is: the Tiger Lillies are going down Mexico way.

Seemingly abducted from their latest touring performances, the band, or perhaps it is the oddly familiar Los Flores del Tigre, wind up in a disreputable outpost near the Mexican border where the singer starts to tell his sorry tale. In these story-telling songs, his corridos, we hear about the tough life he suffered from the start, as a child accordionist playing bars to try and earn enough for a crust of empanada, before a couple of other lost mariachis joined him and together they were given an offer they couldn’t refuse: to sing the praises of the local drug lord. Older now, his heart is inflamed by Maria, who is also being kept at the hacienda, and in his youthful passion he resolves to free her and demonstrate his noble spirit. But Maria is also loved by the wicked crone, who lays a curse on our hero, and thus caught up in such a web of intrigue and emotion there is no escape for him and his compadres. Yet no story like this would be complete without revenge, and eventually we come to understand that the festival of the Day of the Dead is here to be taken very literally indeed.

These songs of murder, retribution and lost love make up the album, which is also the soundtrack for the new, full-length stage show, “Corrido de la Sangre”, presented by HOME and given its world premiere on 20 April, the same day the album is released. The show features projected sets and startling visuals courtesy of regular Tiger Lillies amigo Mark Holthusen (Haunted Palace, Rime of the Ancient Mariner etc.), alongside original music from the Olivier Award-winning and Grammy-nominated trio, widely celebrated and enduringly popular for their distinctive sound that marries high-art cabaret with sordid depravity.

Martyn Jacques’s singing and performance on accordion, piano, harmonica, organ, ukulele or guitar is accompanied as ever by Adrian Stout’s multi-instrument playing, on bass, euphonium and musical saw, plus sepulchral backing vocals; drum duty is handled by Andreas Winter, with guest spots from Jacques and also Timm Brockmann, the master of the mix. For that essential extra quality, Christian Krille plays trumpet on just over half the tracks.

EDGAR ALLAN POE'S HAUNTED PALACE

In a haunted palace a young poet meets the devilish Raven, who supplies him with especially black ink, which guarantees glory and honour. The poet writes frantically and soon runs out. Desperate for more ink, he careers through the many corridors and halls of the palace. In each room he finds a story, a poem, a page of Poe’s imagination, and everywhere there are dying maidens.In a haunted palace a young poet meets the devilish Raven, who supplies him with especially black ink, which guarantees glory and honour.

The poet writes frantically and soon runs out. Desperate for more ink, he careers through the many corridors and halls of the palace. In each room he finds a story, a poem, a page of Poe’s imagination, and everywhere there are dying maidens. The Tiger Lillies, infamous for their characteristic sound reminiscent of opera and gypsy music and their raw passion, make music in the intersection between the offensive and the brilliant. It is three years since they last visited Bergen and its festival, and the band promise a visual nightmare and a bizarre musical extravaganza when they – joined by two actors for the occasion – delve into the unfathomable jolie laide world of Edgar Allan Poe. Running time: 90 minutes

THE TIGER LILLIES PERFORM HAMLET

The Tiger Lillies are back and like post-modern jesters, they tell Shakespeare's tale of the anguished prince Hamlet with their own macabre twist. Directed by Theatre Republique’s Artistic Director Martin Tulinius, The Tiger Lillies Perform Hamlet is an explosion of music and images - a two-hour blast of theatrical seduction, deception, death, dark humour and the utter futility of existence.

From Denmark's acclaimed Republique Theatre, featuring stunning circus acts and video projections, as well as giant puppets and a new score from the band, The Tiger Lillies bring their punk cabaret to this tale of betrayal and murder, love and revenge.The Tiger Lillies Perform Hamlet opened in Denmark in 2011 and has been touring extensively in Europe, Asia, Australia and America, gaining great popular and critical acclaim. Running time: 150 minutes (incl interval)

LOVE FOR SALE

Birds do it, bees do it — and here for your entertainment the Tiger Lillies do it, in 16 songs all written by Cole Porter and presented in the band’s particular and distinctive style.

While Cole Porter’s name might not be a part of our everyday conversation it’s surprising just how well known many of his songs are and how they have become part of our culture. In this album we find out what happens when his lyrics are interpreted by the Tiger Lillies. The original songs have probably endured so well because they are such good examples of the songwriter’s art, with economical phrasings and cute rhymes, all ideally suited to performance and open to being covered in a variety of ways. As such, the selection here presents songs performed in a relatively “straight” manner, letting the music or singing give them individual character, while other songs have been more freely adapted by Martyn Jaques, the band’s singer and songwriter, to introduce the seedier elements of low living that are one of the band’s signature notes. Hence the sub-title, A Hymn to Heroin, which points up the ambiguities in certain of these lyrics that are so ripe for exploiting: that burning yearning in “Night and Day” we all recognise, might also be a craving for something other than another person’s love...

If that one’s a bit of a tough number, there are plenty of up-beat moments too, with a jaunty version of “You’re the Top”, a delightful seesawing duet on “You Do Something To Me”, with fellow band member Adrian Stout, and a roll-up call to “Let’s Misbehave” to get the album started. The crystalline, haunting rendition of the title-track, “Love For Sale”, will transfix many listeners, while others will really feel how much “Miss Otis Regrets”; on the other hand, depravity and addiction stalk “Begin the Beguine” and, not surprisingly, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, in a couple of other heroin tracks, as we might call them. The album is being released on 10 July, just before a two-week run of its stage-show performance, “Love For Sale”, at London’s Soho Theatre. The “Olivier Award-winning godfathers of alternative cabaret”, as the theatre website introduces the Tiger Lillies, will be working with Opera North Projects, with whom they have collaborated on a number of shows previously and to great acclaim. This will also be a return to a venue where the band has played many times over the years, this time with a somewhat twisted cabaret showcase of these reimagined Cole Porter songs that lays bare some of the delirium and despair that lies beneath the surface of his romantic show-tunes. Running time: 90 minutes

CREDITS

Martyn’s singing and performance on accordion, piano, guitar, string synthesiser and occasional harmonica is as ever accompanied by Adrian’s bass, musical saw or euphonium, plus backing vocals, with drums by Timothy Remfrey.

cold night in soho

The album has been  released on 26 January 2017, significantly, this is also the band’s first album not connected to a theatre show in about ten years. As cruel winter once again closes in there comes a time to look back on the year, but in the case of the Tiger Lillies it is a longer look, back to the band’s first steps in the racy and often heartless world of Soho in the 1980s. The muse of song-writing beckoned to Martyn Jacques, the band’s leader and lyricist, and turned his head towards memories of the time he himself was living in Soho, amidst the prostitutes and drug fiends, the sleazemongers and local eccentrics who would all go on to populate his songs over the years. Before the widespread sanitisation of central London in recent times, the closing of the sex shops and the XXX-rated cinemas, there was risk, excitement and colour here, in all its gaudy and unexpected variety. All gone now, the frisson clinically ironed out, blandness installed.

So here we find a series of snapshots of a vanished Soho, such as the women trapped in the endless cycle of turning tricks in clip joints, with the threat of violence every day, in “Soho Clipper Blues”, or the career alcoholic of Soho’s legendary drinking dens whose stupor merges with the booziness of weekend drinkers in “Let’s Drink”. Starched soldiers of the Salvation Army made forays into these degenerate streets, on missions to reclaim souls for God, but the futility of their efforts is laid bare in the song of the same name. There is a continuing theme of religion and redemption in the following songs, “You Wouldn’t Know” and “The First Day”, but this is a world in which the odds are stacked against a win for good, and the cold passing of time (“Ticking of the Hours”) counts off our decades as mere numbers (“Go”). There is a risk, “In the Winter”, that we may all wind up frozen to death in a gutter (“Just Another Day”). But it’s not all a walk down such hopeless one-way streets, and aside from these general portraits and scenic views there are some more personal songs in this collection. Some of the very first gigs the Tiger Lillies performed are memorialised in “Dance Floor”, which shows us the King’s Head in Islington’s Upper Street as it was until only a couple of years ago, a theatre pub with a corner for live music acts which could quite easily slip into the wildest turmoil. A little further north, in “Finsbury Park”, we discover how insalubrious that part of town used to be, and how a busker like Martyn would need to watch where he put his feet. Most interesting of all is the long and heartbreaking lament of the title track, which closes the album, looking back across three decades to a life lost in Soho, and a streetwalker with an unforgettable name... Running time: 90 minutes

THE BALLAD OF sexual dependency.

the tiger lillies & nan goldin

The Tiger Lillies perform a live soundtrack for the Ballad, one continuous piece of music that evolves and underscores the beauty, pain, joy, tragedy and sorrow of relationships and the startling images by Nan Goldin. 

The forty five slide show, including over 700 images and a sound track, functions like a film. The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, constantly reedited and updated, began its public life on the club circuit in New York City and has since been shown at museums, galleries, film festivals, and alternative spaces both in the U.S. and abroad.

"I met Nan a few years ago now. She used to come to our gigs in Brooklyn. She then got in touch and showed me her photo collection, the Ballad of Sexual Dependency. For me it was an inspiration. Her work felt so close, the lives of people from urban subcultures, the underground. Non-conformists. People making their own rules, living lives their own way. It reminded me of my own youth, drugs, night clubs, sex, fetishism. Sad photos as well of abuse and self-harm. So I wrote an epic poem on a subject so close to my own experience and youth. It’s a piece of music and set of lyrics I love. It’s an honour to work with and be inspired by such a great artist as Nan." - Martyn Jaques

"For almost three decades I’ve travelled throughout the world projecting many different versions of ‘The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy’, from downtown clubs to cinemas and finally to museums. What started as a home movie has expanded through dozens of audiences’ reactions. I’ve collected all kinds of music - much of it as gifts - in the same way I’ve collected images. I’ve edited dozens of versions of the soundtrack, which has functioned as my narrative voice, the lyrics often explaining my attitude toward images, from irony to tenderness. This will be the second time, after the Tate Modern Live Performance in 2008, that I’m collaborating with musicians who have created their own original score in relation to the slideshows." - Nan Goldin Running time : 45 minutes (+45 mins of concert)

CREDITS

Martyn Jaques Vocals, Piano, Accordion. Adrian Stout Double Bass, Saw, Theremin. Adrian Huge Drums, Percussions, Backing Vocals.
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was recorded live by Claus Buhler. Photography by Nan Goldin.

THE VERY WORST OF THE TIGER LILLIES

The Tiger Lillies present their fiercest, filthiest tunes for the perverse pleasure of fans old and new. Mean, moody and magnificent – if hell had a house band, it’d be The Tiger Lillies. The cult musical three-piece from London have been unleashing their riotous cabaret, music hall antics and bar room brawl songs on audiences the world over. Formed in 1989, the Olivier award winners’ distinctive musical style weaves together the macabre magic of pre-war Berlin, anarchic opera and gypsy music, echoing the voices of Bertolt Brecht, Jacques Brel, Piaf and the savage edge of punk. 

Led by the accordion-wielding ‘Criminal Castrato’ Martyn Jacques, the Grammy-nominated group present a show of wild emotion, featuring the greatest and worst songs of their 27-year career. Prepare to be enthralled by the darkly funny music and bizarre beauty of The Tiger Lillies. The Tiger Lillies attracted mainstream recognition for composing the music and starring in the junk opera Shockheaded Peter. Having recently won rave reviews for their new shows The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Lulu – A Murder Ballad, these performances are not to be missed. Running time: 90 minutes

CREDITS:

MARTYN JACQUES: Vocals, Accordion, Piano, Ukulele ADRIAN STOUT: Double Bass, Musical Saw, Theremin, Vocals JONAS GOLLAND: Percussion

MADAME PIAF

For the centenary year of the birth of Edith Piaf (1915–1963), the French cabaret singer, it was only right that the Tiger Lillies paid her a visit. And so Martyn Jaques opened up the songbook of France’s “little sparrow” to see what he might find with a view to marking Piaf’s somewhat less-than-happy life and career in a new album and stage show. It was rich material and the resulting production Madame Piaf has now appeared to much acclaim at a number of venues around Europe.

The album and show include a mixture of  original new songs written by Martyn, together with half a dozen cover versions of Piaf’s own songs, sung in English and including her most well-known tracks, “La Vie en Rose”, Padam, and of course, “No Regrets (Non, Je ne Regrette Rien)”. The Tiger Lillies tell the story of Edith Piaf’s everyday life in the bohemian byways of the French capital after the Second World War.

Running time: 90 minutes

CREDITS

LULU - A MURDER BALLAD

The character of Lulu is one of the great creations of 20th Century fiction, and one of its most disturbing. Her unbridled sex appeal, her youth, and her self-destructiveness combine to make her dangerous, unpredictable and tragic. With the men (and the women) who circle her, Lulu’s journey from street prostitute to the toast of Society and back again, is told as a hypnotic and kaleidoscopic dance of death. Journey with her from Berlin to Paris and finally to the dark London streets of Jack The Ripper.

The Tiger Lillies’ genre-defying brand of other-worldly vocals and unnerving performance style have carved them a unique niche in the cabaret and music theatre scene. After a sell-out run of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at the Southbank Centre, the cult creators of the award-winning Shockheaded Peternow stage another adaptation of a macabre classic.

The band’s flamboyant live performance is enhanced by large-scale virtual sets that create an immersive and richly atmospheric environment. Across 20 songs and interludes, the ballad of Lulu unfolds as an uncompromising musical and visual melodrama. Running time: 80 minutes

CREDITS

rime of the ancient mariner

With Rime of the Ancient Mariner - a 90-minute musical adaptation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s greatest work - the band collaborates with American visual artist Mark Holthusen to create a show that is somewhere between a baroque movie and a concert.

For killing an albatross, the mariner and his crew are punished with drought and death. Amidst a series of supernatural events, the mariner’s life alone is spared and he repents. His penance is to wander the earth and tell his tale with the lesson that “all things great and small” are important.

In a modern retelling of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic, legendary balladeers The Tiger Lillies spin this epic tale into a hauntingly beautiful, large-scale multimedia performance. Together with acclaimed visual artist Mark Holthusen, the flamboyant and eccentric band unfolds the story of the ill-fated mariner with exquisite melancholy and lusty menace. Part concert and part film, this is a welcome return from the co-creators of the cult sensation Shockheaded Peter. The show premiered in France in 2012 and has since toured extensively receiving an enthusiastic audience response as well as rave reviews throughout the world. Running time: 90 minutes

CREDITS

VARIETÉ

(Variety) (1925) (a.k.a. Jealousy) "Boss" and his wife Berta-Marie are partners in a new trapeze number. One day, the famous trapeze artist Artinelli takes note of them and engages them for his trapeze show in Berlin. Their salto mortale becomes an immediate sensation. Calculatedly and cold, Artinelli seduces Berta-Marie and destroys "Boss'" happiness."Variete" was a sensation when it appeared, primarily for its beautifully detailed performances and terrific camerawork by Karl Freund. The trapeze sequences will leave you giddy. The montages of variety acts are witty and vibrant. Berlin nightlife in the '20s looks glamorous. Restored print of Variete with a new soundtrack from The Tiger Lillies.

CREDITS