Cinematic touch of cabaret

for Thomas is also inviting his audience to vote for the prediction they would bet on, and he will then head to his friendly, tolerant, neighbourhood bookies in London to see if they will give him favourable, or any, odds on our wildest guesses.

It’s hard to work out whether these propositions are earnest prediction or just bloodthirsty wish fulfilment – let’s just say that Donald Trump and Tony Blair do not want to run into this Summerhall wrecking crew.

Thomas spent his childhood making calculations and forecasts in order to negotiate his volatile father, though even with these personal anecdotes A Show That Gambles on the Future doesn’t quite have the sharp writing, trenchant insight and emotional heart of Thomas’s recent theatrical works – rather, it is laughing so we don’t cry.

For the record, our collective think tank reckons that Theresa May will be outed as a scientologist. Don’t bet against it. FIONA SHEPHERD The Boards (Venue 59) JJJJ Australian cabaret singer Carla Lippis’s debut Fringe show might take place in the up-close-and-personal environs of the Boards barroom but it has a decidedly cinematic sweep.

From the opening notes, a dreamy, foreboding soundscape evocative of the films of David Lynch is conjured by guitarist Geoff Crowther and musical director Vicky Falconer-pritchard, who commands a formidable array of keyboards, vintage drum machines and theremin (and is unrecognisable as her alter ego, Eastend Cabaret’s Victor Victoria). Then Lippis enters, delivering an achingly emotive take on A Whiter Shade of Pale, voice compelling, sonorous, almost anguished, face contorted in feeling. It establishes the tone for a heady set of musical power and heightened delivery.

Lippis’s stage persona calls to mind a whole spectrum of movie iconography. Her black bob, vampish allure and dramatically expressive eyes bring to mind silent-era siren Louise Brooks, while her empowered patter hints at film-noir femmes fatales – or, in its more macabre moments, Universal horror pictures. At her lightest, there are even glimpses of Chaplin or Keaton. There’s a sense of entering an intense world apart, embarking on a wild ride marked at first by a plaintive yearning, then a voracious defiance.

The music plays out accordingly, alternating between imaginative covers and original numbers. Of the former, Nirvana’s Lithium gets a deceptively simple yet moving arrangement, Roy Orbison’s In Dreams takes on an unexpectedly driving bass line and L7’s Fast and Frightening proves itself a rip-roaring anthem of unbridled sexuality.

Original songs include the lacerating Rotten Heart and unabashedly taunting Liar. From the emotional delivery to the vocal technique to the musical ambition, it’s all 0 Carla Lippis and her band Vicky Falconer Pritchard & Geoff Crowther turned up to 11, like a gathering storm or a stampede approaching from the horizon. It’s tantalising to imagine the show on a grander stage, backed by a Lynchian red curtain or a flickering silver screen. BEN WALTERS