Soho Theatre – until 24 May 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
5*****
When I was offered a press ticket for Meow Meow, I jumped at the chance to see this incredible force of nature live again. Once seen, never forgotten.
With It’s Come to This, Meow Meow muses both on her career and the state of the world, mixing her chaotic comedy with darker political commentary. After performing on grand stages like the frequently mentioned Carnegie Hall, Meow Meow riffs on the joke that Soho Theatre is a major letdown brilliantly as she makes her chaotic entrance and has to set up the stage herself. Of course, she stages her entrance again with the front row adoringly throwing roses at her, resplendent in a stunning black ballgown with amazing hair.
Advertising as an “international singing sensation and purr-fect post pandemic, post-post-modern Superstar” seems hyperbole, but it could be an understatement here. Meow Meow’s storytelling, through her comedy and her singing, is simply astonishing. With a gorgeously expressive and controlled voice, songs ranging from the Weimar era to Radiohead are performed with passion and charisma, accompanied by Ben Dawson on piano – the calm in the eye of the onstage storm.
There is unhinged comedy and audience interaction – no one is safe as Meow Meow prowls the audience looking for victims – and their belongings. And, of course, she crowd-surfs. In a ballgown and stilettoes. Up steeply raked seating. Hilarious and terrifying.
Music from the era when fascism was on the rise in the 1920s and 30s hits harder now, and stories about the survival of art, philosophical ideas and the angel of history, are shared with the audience. Meow Meow asks if any of us have any answers to stop history repeating but doesn’t offer any. Instead, the show reminds us that amongst the despair and anger at the politics and aggression around us, creativity endures to connect and share beauty and joy, even in the darkest hour.
A sublime show from a true superstar.