Triple Threat

This monstrously inappropriate cabaret about the New Testament – with a less-than-immaculate conception – is not for the faint of heart

BRITISH PROVOCATEUR LUCY McCormick’s Triple Threat feels like the logical endgame of the relentless dumbing down and sexing up of popular culture, insofar as it would appear to be the most vulgar concept for a show she could possibly think of. In it she plays a character called ‘Lucy McCormick’, a monstrous narcissist and exhibitionist who has decided to make a self-aggrandising, sexually inappropriate stage adaptation of the New Testament in which she takes on every major role, backed by a couple of cowed, buff male dancers whom she witheringly puts down every time they threaten to stray into the limelight. The joy and the horror of Triple Threat is that McCormick leaps over lines of good taste that even reality TV would baulk at. The show’s most mind-boggling scene is a recreation of the story of Doubting Thomas, which for difficult reasons to explain culminates in one of McCormick’s dancers furiously fingering her up the actual jacksie.

But the show never pauses to milk the audience’s discomfort: it ploughs on in a joyously depraved explosion of obnoxiously loud pop songs, precision-tooled dance routines, and lots and lots of nudity. The impressive piece of doublethink at the heart of the show is that on some level McCormick is immensely fond of the trash culture she is deliberately pushing beyond the bounds of acceptable taste – she clearly gives a shit about what she is doing, and is a good dancer and singer, and the show is remarkably slick. If Triple Threat came on TV unironically, you’d probably despair that the end was nigh. Presented as a transgressive, mischievous piece of theatre it feels strangely joyous. Andrzej Lukowski à Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh 2015. 02 8571 9099. sydneyfestival.org.au. Wed-Sun 8.30pm. $39-$45. Jan 15-19.