I’ve had Art vs Sci­ence’s song Par­lez-Vous Fran­cais stuck in my head for two days because of this show and I’m not even a lit­tle ashamed to admit it.

The Cabaret de Paris is a glo­ri­ous dis­play of joy, sequins and (per­haps) tit­il­la­tion, and I had a very good time. Com­bin­ing show­girl glam­our, singing, illu­sion­ists and fab­u­lous dancers (includ­ing a ren­di­tion of the tra­di­tion­al Can-Can) this show aims to bring a slice of Paris to your city for just one night.

And it cer­tain­ly did so.

It is an absolute extrav­a­gan­za of a show, and quite unlike any­thing else I’ve ever seen on the Opera House­’s stage. Fea­tur­ing for­mer Moulin Rouge per­former Maris­sa Burgess, we’re trans­port­ed to a world where every­thing is glit­tery, every­one can do the splits, and the world seems a lot more sim­ple.

Some high­lights of the night were — as men­tioned above — a fab­u­lous dance num­ber to Par­lez-Vous Fran­cais — which quick­ly tran­si­tioned into a vibrant ver­sion of the Can-Can that all mem­bers of the ensem­ble joined in with (includ­ing the men). It was such a fun vignette that I spent the entire­ty of the inter­val buoy­ant and excit­ed from the sheer joy in it.

Duban Nikol sur­prised and wowed us with some rather ener­getic com­e­dy on a tram­po­line — get­ting the loud­est clap of the night — and Michael Boyd (of Aus­trali­a’s Got Tal­ent) pulled off some thor­ough­ly impres­sive illu­sions.

There was also a gor­geous pole-danc­ing vignette (on quite a pre­car­i­ous pole), a bizarre but whole­heart­ed­ly fun mashup of Voulez Vous and Voulez Vous Couch­er Avec Moi, and far too many feath­ers.

As well as a fair bit of nudi­ty.

Top­less shows are an inter­est­ing premise in today’s world — with the depths of the lurid side of the inter­net so eas­i­ly reach­able, they seem a lit­tle obso­lete. Speak­ing as a queer woman, pre­sum­ably right in the cen­ter of this show’s demo­graph­ic, out of con­text breasts aren’t at all tit­il­lat­ing to me. I’m sure that was­n’t a idea echoed by a large potion of oth­ers in the audi­ence, but it was just some­thing I found inter­est­ing.

There were moments in the rest of the show — such as a con­tex­tu­al song num­ber where two of the male dancers helped Maris­sa Burgess strip (naughty bits cov­ered with feath­ers, of course) — that felt far more erot­ic, but I’m sure there’s some­thing in this show that’ll tick­le any­one’s fan­cy, if that’s what you’re look­ing for when you go to a cabaret.

The Cabaret de Paris is a lot of fun, but lacks the self-aware­ness that one would hope would be present in a show like this. It is, how­ev­er, a spec­ta­cle that is far unlike a lot of local con­tent. If you like shiny cos­tumes, pret­ty peo­ple and illu­sions, this one’s for you.