Cocktails with the Diva

Operatic performer Melinda Hughes has once again taken a step out of the aria spotlights and into Fringe cabaret. Noting that Edinburgh is far from understocked with cabaret singers, Hughes dips us into an interesting Weimar-style bar with her threepiece jazz band bobbing through gentle rhythms behind her. To the side, a cocktail cabinet that, if we’re lucky, we might get to sample.

The trouble is that the chance of a slippery nipple is about as exciting as it gets. Hughes belts out songs about where the cheapest places to go on holiday would be—Gaza and Ukraine probably the best options—and what life is like on the streets of Edinburgh during the Fringe. These bland, bumbling numbers are well written and performed with plenty of sass by Hughes and pianist Jeremy Limb, but they’re lifeless.

Producing only dispersed applause, Cocktails with the Diva possesses neither the racy naughtiness of an EastEnd Cabaret nor the scathingly funny satire of Frisky and Mannish. To be honest, the word “penis” is about as risqué as it dares to venture. Hughes can never quite get the balance right between audience interaction and solo singing: she bursts through the fourth wall, then drops all the building blocks on the way back. As a result, it’s all rather embarrassing and amateurish. There are moments of light relief, purely down to Hughes’ singing talents. But sadly this is quite the cabaret cod: a soirée that will leave you with an empty glass.