Review: The Performers at The Loading Dock Theatre

Review by Kate Gaul

In the small black box that is The Loading Dock Theatre, cabaret duo Dolly Diamond and Skank Sinatra arrive like seasoned vaudevillians who have seen every backstage corridor and survived them all. “The Performers” is less a tightly structured show than a rolling, gloriously unruly conversation between two entertainers who understand that the art of cabaret lies as much in timing and temperature as in repertoire.

They loosely frame the evening around the inevitable debt accrued from surviving the Edinburgh Fringe - will they or won’t they ever clear it? There’s a wink to “The Producers”, of course: the delicious theatrical fantasy that failure might somehow be more lucrative than success. It’s a knowing conceit that gives shape to the chaos without ever pinning it down.

From the outset, the format is intimate - the audience close, the lighting warm and forgiving. The proximity suits the pair’s chosen style for “The Performers”. Dolly Diamond, all arch poise and razor timing, works the room with the assurance of someone who has long since mastered the power of a raised eyebrow. Skank Sinatra, a polished diva with a taste for mischief, counters with a looseness that feels dangerous in the best way. Their chemistry is less duet than duel: affectionate, competitive, conspiratorial. Yet beneath the barbs is unmistakable respect - two colleagues who clearly admire each other’s craft and know exactly how to set the other up for a punchline or a high note.

The patter is the engine. Generational jokes ricochet between them - references pinging from pre-digital nostalgia to TikTok-era absurdity. There’s a running undercurrent about ageing, relevance and the indignities of staying fabulous. Dolly leans into the grande dame persona, tossing off lines with studied disdain; Skank punctures pomposity before it can fully inflate. The audience isa cross-section of queer elders, allies and bright-eyed newcomers:  all become witness and accomplice, drawn into the rhythm of tease and retort.

Where the evening falters is in its technical execution. The amplified sound production does the material few favours. Lyrics frequently blur into muffled syllables, particularly during duets when harmonies and text should land with clarity and punch. In cabaret, text is everything. At times, the performers appear to compensate physically, pushing expression and gesture to ensure meaning cuts through where amplification does not.

It is a testament to their skill that so much still lands. There’s an undeniable sense that both artists are simultaneously celebrating and skewering the musical canon they inhabit. 

The intimacy of The Loading Dock Theatre both elevates and constrains the show. There is genuine pleasure in seeing performers of this calibre at such close quarters: the raised eyebrow, the whispered aside, the quicksilver shift from sincerity to satire all land with conspiratorial thrill. Yet there is also the sense that the stage is simply too small for the ambition at play. These personas - so fiercely drawn, so theatrically expansive - yearn for a larger canvas. If the sound were sharper and the space grander, the evening would ascend from delightful to dazzling.

But there is something refreshingly unvarnished about “The Performer”. It resists slickness. The show feels alive, responsive, occasionally chaotic - which in cabaret is often a virtue rather than a flaw. This time around, Dolly and Skank understand that the audience is not there for perfection; they are there for presence. And presence they deliver in abundance.

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