For I was ringside at Le Haggis in Dumfries, the flagship cabaret show for the Big Burns Supper. And while it was dreich outside, the atmosphere in the spiegeltent was hot. Scantily clad performers from around the world thrilled the appreciative audience with dance, burlesque, contortionism, a drag act, live music, singing and acrobatics. They swung from ropes, dangled from hoops, swallowed swords, balanced brollies, swivelled hula hoops, set the fiddle alight, burst out of giant latex balls and serenaded the room. The ambience was electric and the audience lapped up everything on offer. Over the last five years, Le Haggis has been gathering pace and garnering a blistering reputation and it certainly lived up to its plaudits this year. I gasped, cheered and whooped with the best of them and didn’t have to be asked twice to dance along for the finale. (Let’s be honest, given half a chance I’d have been up on that stage too!) All too soon it was over, with just a shower of sequins marking the spot where the magic happened. Au revoir Le Haggis, but a bientot!
*Pictured above, Le Haggis cast members Ulrike Storch, Cameron Barns, and Marianne Fraser. Photo: Ian Georgeson
