Published: 15 July 2010
by JOSHUA SURTEES

FROM the enthralling opening sequence of circus acrobatics onwards it is simply impossible to take your eyes off the stage. The Butler is the funniest, sexiest show you will see in London all year. 

Having run for four years in New Zealand, writer Joe Bennett and director Mike Friend have brought the show to England, where its satirical contortion of social etiquette has surely found its rightful home.  

Centred on a dinner party attended by a group of self-obsessed, sex-mad eccentrics competing for the attention and kudos of their peers, taboos not usually discussed in “polite society” burst to the surface  exposing animalistic urges, holding up a mirror to the vanity of individualism and deriding the vulgarity of one-upmanship. 

The guests abandon their manners as the evening becomes increasingly hilarious, orgiastic and slapstick. 

Buster Keaton, La Clique, Abigail’s Party and Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party are all somewhere in the heady blend. 

The butler of the title is not so much a servant as the one nod to sanity amidst a cabaret of depravity. 

World weary, he pays little attention to the chaos around him except to pour scorn calmly and deadpan over an assembled party insensible to his sarcasm. 

His occasional recitations of beautifully hybridised poetic text serve as a counterpoint to the anarchy reigning within his domain of reluctant servitude. 

Expertly acted, sung and choreographed, this show is an achievement that should tour Edinburgh and beyond. 

Instead, this July run at the Pleasance will be your only chance to see it before it returns home to Christchurch.

Until July 31 • 020 7609 1800 • Carpenters Mews, North Road, N7