With strap-ons on display, rope-dangling performers, roller skating usherettes in wheeze inducing corsets and circus freaks condensed into tiny glass jars, Newcastle, tonight, was the domicile of darkness.

Sprung mouse traps must surely hurt when crashing down on the head of a wee rodent but The Reverend Nick Hell strangely liked his lodged on the end of his tongue. The whipped cream covered areolas of burlesque bunny Anna Fur Laxis received a resounding thumbs up, but things got heavy when Nick Hell launches on to the stage with a metal dustbin attached to his ears.

Dixie Licious lobs a few Bobby George sized playing darts in to his bare back, but it’s his teatime tackle routine that inspires unequivocal curling of the toes. He pulls out a kettle, which you instinctively know isn’t for making cha. Instead he decides to attach the kettle to a chain and the chain to his knob for another swinging session. Quite amazing actually to see how flexible the willy can be and all performed without a single tear in his eye.
Meg La Mania fused the bespectacled librarian look with a wonderful rendition of Björk’s ‘It's Oh So Quiet’ and Penny Whipworth emerges from a makeshift grave to entertain us with skeleton burlesque.

Dixie Licious returns to the stage to adorning her scantily clad torso with hundred and thousands plus a healthy dollop of cream. The final illumination comes courtesy of the very blue duo, Smurfz-A-Go-Go, who are convincingly left to angle grind and ingest twirling batons of fire, right up until the performances end.

Performance is undoubtedly golden here at the Lotus; however, tea and white goods may never look the same...