Cabaret artist Hersh Dagmarr specialises in the style of performance that evokes images of the 1920s and 1930s, in smoke-filled basement clubs from Paris to Weimar Berlin. While his shows often draw from a variety of sources, occasionally he dedicates evenings to a single pop artist or band, repurposing their catalogue to fit his style. Indefinite Leave to Remain used Pet Shop Boys as its source material. His new show, Minogueus Sanctus, applies the same techniques to the back catalogue of Kylie Minogue.
Dressed in a white outfit with a matching hood to match the look of the Can’t Get You Out of My Head video, Dagmarr uses that song to set out his stall. Accompanist and arranger Karen Newby delivers a tempo that matches and draws inspiration from Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret.
The song list pays no heed to chronology, content to butt Stock Aitken and Waterman era numbers against more recent singles. The strength of this approach is most evident when Newby’s arrangements do something original with its source material, most often slowing down a brisk pop number into a sultry slow torch song – or the other way, with 2003’s Slow sped up to something akin to a Scott Joplin rag. When Love at First Sight begins, its sultriness as a ballad is evident – but halfway through, the tempo reverts closer to the original, and the magic dissipates.
Another problem is that many of Dagmarr’s choices from Minogue’s back catalogue have very anodyne, repetitive choruses. While that is fine for the dance floor, when sitting watching a largely static performance, one yearns for something else. One exception is with a Tango-infused rendition of It’s In Your Eyes. Each repeating couplet is delivered with increasing levels of urgent mania, transforming the repetition into a strength rather than, as elsewhere, a weakness.
Some Kylie numbers suit Dagmarr’s cabaret style far more closely. Chief among these is a solo performance of Where the Wild Roses Grow, her 1995 murder ballad duet with Nick Cave. Similarly, 1997’s Confide in Me has a much stronger verse lyric than many of the singer’s poppier numbers and suits the Dagmarr and Newby aesthetic. It is a shame, perhaps, that the show does not dip into this period of the singer’s back catalogue, as other numbers from that era would also suit the cabaret performance approach.
Between the songs, it is telling that Dagmarr has not quite grasped how to bring cohesion to the show. Rambling tales, suggesting that he is an immortal singer who was performing in Montmartre in the 1920s before moving to Weimar Berlin, feel like they belong in a different show. Meanwhile, references to the worship of Kylie as some religious cult – hence, one presumes, the clumsily-worded title of the show – seem half-hearted.
However, the songs and arrangements mainly provide enough originality and nostalgia to compensate. Dagmarr isn’t the first performer to put together 2023’s Padam Padam with Edith Piaf’s Padam, and almost certainly won’t be the last. But no other show would also include a breathy, all-French version of Je Ne Sais Pourquoi and a rousing production of Your Disco Needs You either.
Dagmarr’s show may not convince as evidence of a Cult of Kylie. At times, it feels like it drops perilously close to a standard tribute act. There are flashes, though, that he and Newby are onto something. Will they be able to find it in due course? We should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
Reviewed on 28 July 2025
