Duke Special

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It’s not every night that an old man beats a cymbal so hard with an egg whisk that he loses balance and falls off a stage. Then again, it’s not all that often that a musical performance is so based around the bizarre and theatrical that such a thing could conceivably happen.

This is, however, exactly what Duke Special brings to a stage he shares with an antique gramophone, a battered piano and something that looks like a companion set with pots, pans and bells hanging from it. He performs with operatic gestures. He DJs with a gramophone, and then, as he reaches crescendo, he stops everything to hand out cakes.

Tonight is a shining example of Duke’s ability to entertain, but more importantly, it’s proof that his depiction of vaudeville is more at home, here in the larger surroundings of The Liquid Rooms, as they always have been elsewhere.