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.