Wam Bam Club founder Lady Alex performing one of her musical burlesque numbers.
As weekly events go, few have the high profile and consistency of The Wam Bam Club. The supperclub has been the regular Saturday night resident at West End hotspot Café de Paris for seven years and it is now stretching its wings with a new show.
On 26 April, the Bloomsbury Ballroom will be the venue for the Club’s new monthly show. The cabaret acts will be spread over two stages and swing is the thing when it comes to the music with the audience being invited to get frisky on the dancefloor to live bands.
We spoke to Lady Alex, the Wam Bam Club’s hostess and founder about just what she has in store.
Congratulations on your new show. How long have you been putting it together?
This show has been in my head for a long time. We love the gorgeous Café de Paris but I have often wondered what I’d get up to if I had an even bigger space. I’ve always wanted to work with a live band and have even bigger dance routines.
Now we are making the Bloomsbury Ballroom our second home I can finally let my ideas free.
What was the inspiration behind the Friday show?
I’ve always loved the glamour of burlesque and the vibrancy of variety which is why Wam Bam works so well. But deep down inside I have a yearning to go to a ball, like Cinderella, where you dress up and have a whole evening of grandeur. So this is what I’ve tried to achieve at the Bloomsbury Ballroom.
Think of this: guests will enter the ballroom via a glamorous sweeping entrance, greeted by my buff boy footmen, a free glass of champagne and a bit of pre-show mingling. Then a free swing dance class to loosen you up before you’re treated to a brand new Wam Bam show on a grand scale in this beautiful ballroom. All this is topped off by live swing and good old fashioned dancing and drinking all night.
Does London really need another cabaret show?
If it is a good one, always.
People are very quick to place all shows with “cabaret” in the title together and label them as the same which simply isn’t true. There is always room for a new show if it’s something really special which I know this event will be.
Good quality shows with live entertainment are what keeps this industry alive. People deserve choice and should not settle for second-rate shows. It’s time to raise the bar and keep the public excited about cabaret and away from TV and takeaways. Otherwise the industry will die and that would be very sad.
The ideal is for people to come to my show, fall in love with cabaret and leave wanting to see more shows.
For those who have never been to the Saturday shows at the Café de Paris, how would you describe the Wam Bam brand of entertainment?
Wam Bam is good honest fun show with no pretension of doing anything other than making people happy.
It’s a full on event with four resident dancers, The Buff Boys and Wam Bam Belles who have fabulous and cheeky high energy routines. We have a different line-up each week of some of the world’s best artists in variety entertainment including amazing aerial acts, breathtaking circus performers, glamorous sensual burlesque with music, magic and comedy all thrown into the mix. Most people come away wide-eyed and smiling. We’ve had seven years to perfect this structure and it works.
Will the Bloomsbury Ballroom shows have their own identity or are they an extension of the Saturday shows?
This will be a new show which cannot be seen anywhere else. There will be new routines and a new style to it, but it will still retain the same trademark high standards of Wam Bam – standards that have kept us sold out every Saturday for over seven years now.
Most of the Friday show will be based around my resident cast and their break out performances – with a few carefully selected star guest acts. Saturdays at Café de Paris has more guest acts with my resident dancers framing them.
How will you spread the fun over the two stages?
If there is one thing I am good at it, its spreading; legs, shows, you name it!
It’s going to be a lot of fun playing with two stages. We will have action alternating between both and some at the same time. We plan on surrounding the audience with wonderfulness. It will be exhilarating for us and the audience and there will be no room for hiding. The audience will be as much a part of the action as us performers.
How will the food side of the evening work?
Sharing platters is another fun element of the show. We have an amazing chef who has designed rather fun bespoke sharing platters of food. This show is all about using your fingers.
There will be lots of choices of tasty treats to nibble on during the evening, even a marvellous chocolate fondue. The food is designed to fit the show. So it will be quirky, tasty and finger licking good.
Even the drinks are a little novel. There are not many places you can order champagne by the bucketful or a signature cocktail which will be served over ice or over a naked buff boy or girl, depending on what you pick off the menu.
What was the thinking behind having swing at the heart of this event?
Often to my disappointment I find that the after show element of an evening is rather neglected. To me, a good after show should draw on the energy of the finale and notch it up even more – enough to get people up and dancing like crazy!
A nine piece live swing band is perfect for this. We are lucky to have the incredible characters of The Top Shelf who are a whole show unto themselves.
Will we see you shaking a leg with the audience after the show?
Try and stop me! I am a one woman flash-dance sensation when plied with a bucket of champagne. God help my hamstrings!
Want to win a pair of tickets to see the show for yourself? You do? Step this way…
Have a gander at the official Wam Bam Club website for more information.
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