Kiara Gannon, co-founder with Emma Weafer of UnderCurrent, the burlesque-cabaret-theatre show set up in 2011, is laughing.
“We’re like America in the UN,” she says of the duo, after describing how the show is run. “When we set this up, we decided it would be a curated show and we’d get the final say,” says Emma. “It’s a benevolent dictatorship.”
With a core cast of nine performers, plus occasional appearances from Irish drag stars like Bunny, Phil T. Gorgeous and Julian Mandrews, putting a show together can’t be easy. Everyone has their favourite numbers, and getting performers to agree can be a little like herding cats. So far, the ‘anything goes’ ethos of the show, which grew out of the much-loved raucous open mic night, The Hutch at Pantibar, has proved successful.
The group has performed at Dublin Pride and has had sell-out shows at the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and The Workmans Club. While the show – and the performers – are clearly gay, it attracts straight and gay crowds, young and old.
“We were expecting an LGBTQ crowd,” explains Kiara. “We’re all queer in one way or another. And although we do have a straight tech, we thought it would be a gay audience that would come, but the crowd is very mixed.” Emma agrees. “We get a lot of straight people coming, and people who were not really familiar with alternative cabaret. They got really into it. We have a core audience of straight librarians and older people who come to almost every show. They came out to see it once, and they’ve kept coming back, bringing their friends and colleagues, which is brilliant.”
Ireland’s recent history has made what was traditionally gay entertainment more accessible. “The marriage equality referendum,” Kiara says, “has given people permission to go out and explore the scene and see that they can be part of it. It’s not scary!” Emma joins in the laughter. “The show is super gay,” she says,”but it’s fluffy!”
While the show has elements of drag, UnderCurrent is not a drag show.
“It’s not so much about the performance of gender but rather that everyone gets a chance to get up on stage and be fabulous,” explains Emma. “It’s very old-school in the sense of being vaudevillian, and it is a proper variety show. I think that’s why it also appeals to older people, who remember dinner theatre.”
Their latest show this July promises “lots of new stuff.”
“We we’re getting a bit medieval on people’s asses,” Emma says. “We’re doing some Shakespeare-inspired stuff from Something Rotten! We’re doing some songs from Hamilton, which won 11 Tony Awards. Occasionally we do some nutso internet famous stuff, and we’re doing Rob Cantor’s ‘Shia LaBoeuf’. It should be a bit mental. But I have found that whatever you do, if you do it right, you can take the audience on a journey with you.”
The troupe choose their set-pieces based on what they enjoy rather than what they think will work. You never know what an audience will respond to. “We do this one number where I mime playing the bass guitar,” Kiara says, “and people love it. I’ve had people come up to me afterwards and tell me I mime really well, which is pretty weird since they’ve seen me actually play guitar on stage for eight or nine songs. Nope! It’s the air bass that people love! Apparently I am really talented air bassist.”
“Sometimes you put your heart and soul into a number, and it goes down like a lead balloon,” Emma adds. “Or it works with one audience but not another. You never really know until you’re on stage. But then something really simple like Flight of the Conchords’ ‘Inner City Pressure’ always gets a great response.”
“I love doing ‘Inner City Pressure’,” says Kiara. “It’s this weird, little number and people always laugh.”
Both Emma and Kiara have performed for years — Kiara joined her first band through an ad placed in ye olde Hot Press — so they must have had some disasters! “Oooh,” says Emma. “Mine was in the George years ago. I was performing to a Marilyn Manson number and they squashed me into this fetish dress which zipped from the neck down. As I was performing I could feel the zip start to go from the bottom up. There was nothing I could do. The backing performers had to stand one behind me and one in front of me to shuffle me off stage. It was pretty embarrassing but at least I was wearing very good knickers!”
“I have never had anything really bad happen,” says Kiara. “I’ve made mistakes on stage and I beat myself up about them, but the weirdest thing was when I was doing a gig for a mature audience, we’ll say. I have never seen people partying so hard. They were in their sixties at least and they went mental. They were dancing on tables, they were moshing. It was one of the weirdest and best gigs I have ever played. It was inspirational!”

UnderCurrent are performing at The Workmans Club on 15 July. Tickets are €12.