Two kindred spirits, a generation apart, meet across the decades at a party to which we’re all invited

“We had the biggest party in the darkest time,” declares one of the gloriously evocative numbers in Miriam Sherwood's self-styled ‘grandad cabaret’. Rendezvous in Bratislava is a love letter to her late grandfather Jan ‘Laco’ Kalina, a Slovakian Jewish satirist, joke collector, cabaret creator and radio performer whom she never met. From the get-go Sherwood channels this extraordinarily prolific free spirit and his loyal wife Agi, journalist and keeper of his writings and recordings, the grandmother she did get to know and love.

Offering audience members shot glasses filled with the fiery Slovakian spirit borovička on arrival instantly creates a lively atmosphere. Performers and audience members connect in celebration of the parties the couple loved to throw, even as a last hurrah against the double whammy of fascism in wartime Slovakia, succeeded by equally repressive communism. Slips of paper pressed into eager hands are printed with telling jokes sending up the 1984-type paranoia of Laco’s life and times, which we’re invited to read out as if they came from crackers (in fact Laco did indeed leave piles of slips featuring such jokes).

The set resembles an untidy living room. A washing line at the back pegged with notices scrawled on cardboard provides a sort of timeline of landmark events in Laco’s life, including writing his cabaret Rendezvous in Bratislava – the namesake of Sherwood’s show – and the Prague Spring of 1968.

The air of spontaneity is artfully created. It’s almost believable that the talented young Slovak musician in the audience has genuinely been co-opted into the company, so convincing is her deliciously startled expression as she hesitatingly picks up the proffered flute and starts to play. Spoiler alert: she is the hugely talented jazz flautist, singer and composer Maria Rehakova.

Talking music and song, Sherwood’s other two onstage collaborators are an exceptional pair of composer/performers, Thom Andrewes and Will Gardner, nattily turned out in white shirts and sharp bow ties. Gardner creates the rich soundtrack, evoking sophisticated pre-war cabaret on piano, accordion and backing vocals; while Andrewes channels the Marx Brothers’ cheeky wit and body language on lead vocals.

Many of the satisfying lyrics and much of the music are Andrewes', cleverly created in homage to Laco. He is also responsible for surreal sketches true to Laco’s spirit, especially tellingly as an eccentric professor in a futuristic post-nuclear world, where human laughter is a thing of the distant past that he tries to conjure for his audience by delving back in time.

Sherwood herself is at the centre of the action and creation of the warm, celebratory atmosphere. Her smile lights up the stage and her speeches in Slovak are intriguing and inclusive, since all are translated into English.

With more onstage partying to unite performers and the audience, raising glasses of fizz to toast New Year 1957, the show follows the trajectory of Laco’s life and fate: his passion for the wireless and success creating cabaret for this chosen medium, contrasted with the reversals of fortune that came with his persecution under the communists. Seeing it to discover how his story ends is no hardship, for this promises to be one of the most original and life enhancing shows of the year – and it’s still only January.

By Judi Herman

Header photo © Tea Films

Rendezvous in Bratislava tours the UK until Sunday 17 May; visiting Oxford (7 Feb), Berkshire (11 Mar), Greater Manchester (14 Mar), London (23-24 Apr) and Yorkshire (17 May). See JR listings for further details or visit https://rendezvousinbratislava.wordpress.com

Listen to our interview with Miriam Sherwood on JR OutLoud.