'Lustre' at The Soho Theatre

Went to see Justin Bond's show, 'Lustre', at the Soho Theatre again last night and I'm pleased we did - he was on top form, in good voice and mad as a hatter with tales of pagan rituals, not snorting coke and causing the current financial meltdown. The weight on his soul must be truly terrible with all this responsibility he carries. And that's not mentioning the frocks. It seemed full last night, with people budging up to get more onto the pews - the show's only on for a couple more nights so see it while you can.

Justin is a surprisingly calming person to listen to (considering he's all over the place) and it made me wonder how much is carefully scripted, how much simply falls into place naturally because it's proven it works and how much is really improvised? Whichever, it's nice to hear him talk and just go with the flow. The theme of the current show is all things 'trans' which leaves him a wide canvas to play with. He also has a gift for choosing interesting and thoughtful songs and arranging them to fit his voice and delivery. Justin introduced me to the mad, bad and probably not very nice to know Bambi Lake a few years ago and now he's introduced me to the unfortunately dead Benjamin Smoke via his painful song, 'Clean White Bed' (he's someone I need to investigate further).

Our Lady J was, again, very glamorous on piano and sung 'Pink Prada Purse' to great applause. She had a slight accident when she slipped and fell off the stage when leaving for the guest act but seemed to be ok on return. She is an excellent piano player - mad and exuberent one minute, introspective and evocative the next - and mentioned that she's a music teacher in New York, so that explains it. Justin said he'd also had some accidents and blamed the ghosts of the theatre.

And, of course, Novice Theory was there on cue to sing the strange, 'About The Dream' with his accordion. Justin mentioned that he was plucked from the theatre the other night to record for 'Later... with Jools Holland' which will be shown tonight. I *like* Novice Theory, with his raggamuffin approach, big voice, odd lyrics and an overall wonderfully dramatic sound. I meant to buy his CD the first time we went to the show but he was busy chatting so didn't disturb him but I missed my chance since he's now sold them all - which is great for him, but bad for me since I wanted one. Still, the album's now on iTunes so I downloaded it (he'd earn more money if he printed more CDs though). I'll definitely be watching out for young Geo in future.

The guest act was a singer called Scotty who was new to me. I'm not sure what to make of him - he has a nice voice in a stage-school kind of way and I liked his cartoon jacket but he didn't really engage one way or another and, oddly enough, didn't join the rest of the cast for the final bow.

On the way out it was nice to see our three Lustre stars at the exit with a table and their CDs (except Novice Theory had a handwritten sign on a scrap of paper referring us to iTunes). Even Justin was there with the Kiki & Herb CD. I will say again, he really ought to record his own. I had a very brief chat to Novice Theory but forgot to ask him why he chose that name, so answers on a postcard to me please. And out in the cold Soho night ...