Fallen Angels Cabaret in the Focus Theatre, Dublin

Sunday night debauchery in a Dublin back alley...

Unapologetically rude, the Fallen Angel team perform songs and sketches about sex, shopping and S&M, what it would like to be a priest (and what he would do with his rod), and ribald songs about fishy affairs (Bob the Blowfish?). Their resident downbeat Carlow comedian tells of her horror of substitute teaching and the evils of children. She appears in a spoof of that terrible 'body in the bed' news story from Co. Mayo, as a senile spinster talking to her decomposed sister.

Guests appear - 'The Racker' a wandering poet, champion of London, lives in Bray most of the time, but is obsessed with Sandycove. The man is a genius, of sorts, I wish I could remember some of his verse.

The show winds up with 'Songs From A New York' songbook. When they're serious or earnest, they irritate the fuck out of me. When they're being lurid and cynical, they're far more endearing. I realise that this may say more about me than them. A piano player, two female vocalists and one male, they perform the serious songs while staring into the middle distance, while going about love and fulfilling dreams. When they're playful, they're going on about the the importance of richness and fame, about being accused of '14 pounds away from my love' ( song by Heisler and Goldrich), and how to dump one-night stands.

In the past few weeks, Camille O'Sullivan and Jack L have appeared as guests.

Fallen Angels: Cabaret night every Sunday (until the end of March) at 7.30pm. Tickets are €10.

From The Irish Times (Kevin Myers):

...The next stage in the evolution of the stand-up comic in Ireland was for it to leap sexes, which in due course it did. But there still aren't as many women comedians as men. One of them is Anne Lillis, whose mind is a scandalous shopping mall of anarchy, subversion and lewdness. This she-Soho on legs is the power behind the The Fallen Angels cabaret which starts at the Focus theatre, Pembroke Lane, Dublin on Sunday (doors open at 7.30, performance at 8.30; wine bar).

---snip---

Anne trained under Deirdre O'Connell, and possesses some of her steel: Stanislavski meets Bessemer. She was found to have a brain tumour six years ago, and since brains and tumours seldom co-exist within the same skull without serious consequences for the former, the visitor had to go; but eviction can be nearly as problematical as allowing the uninvited intruder to remain. Four years of her life went into recovering - fully - from the surgeon's knife, and now she is back at her career as a drama teacher, singer, comedian and theatrical producer of The Fallen Angels. The saga has been a blessing of a sort, for, being a comedian, Anne has turned that episode to mordantly good account in her comedy material.

For the next six Sundays the dear old Focus will be home to a crack in the hard core over the hot and bubbling lava of comic talent that lies beneath Dublin's crust.

Anne has lined up a complete menagerie of anarchist and of animal, of cabaret and circus, of street performer and singer, and - naturally - of comedian, for this latest exploration and celebration of a new and, not so long ago, utterly unimaginable and entirely enjoyable Ireland. Oh - and as you enter, look up: that's Deirdre O'Connell, smiling joyfully. Not in vain, Deirdre, not in vain.