Sabrage Review at Lafayette London World Class Circus Cabaret

There is a moment in Sabrage involving lotion, a Greek stranger, and 36 years of dedicated practice, and it is best experienced without warning.

Walk into Lafayette and the evening starts before the show does. The staff are genuinely brilliant, the kind that make you feel like a guest rather than a ticket number, and the pre-show hour in Nola's speakeasy bar sets exactly the right tone. The cocktails are excellent, the food is good, and by the time you take your seat you are already well into the night.

Lafayette itself deserves a mention. Tucked just behind Coal Drops Yard in King's Cross, it is intimate enough that nothing happening onstage feels remote, and stylish enough that simply being there feels like something.

Co-hosts Alexander and Neven open by welcoming everyone: "ladies, gentlemen, and those beyond the binary." Alexander then announces, entirely straight-faced, that the evening ahead will be one of utmost class and pure sophistication. He is lying, and he knows you know it, and that gap between the promise and what actually unfolds is where most of the best comedy lives.

The two of them move through the audience with real ease, finding people and pulling them into scenarios they did not sign up for. Alexander identifies one gentleman in the stalls as bearing a striking resemblance to his disappointed father. The man's face does something complicated and wonderful. Nothing prepares you for any of it. That is entirely the point.

The champagne bit is a masterclass in slow-burn absurdity. The qualities that separate a good bottle from a great one are enumerated with great seriousness: the skin, the shape, the smell, the texture, and, after a weighted pause, the size. One word comes back from the other side of the stage: "Marketing." A grape-catching contest follows, with a prize offered that cannot be printed here, closing with Alexander's serene summary: "A deal's a deal."

Later, mid-chaos, he stops everything to announce: "This is supposed to be a very serious piece of music." It is not.

Between the comedy the circus work is genuinely world class. Emma Phillips juggles parasols with her feet. Neven is an aerialist, acrobat and roller skater who makes all three look effortless. The newer cast members bring their own qualities: grounded presence, aerial work with real storytelling in it, physical commitment that makes you hold your breath. As an ensemble they have obvious warmth for each other, and it shows.

The nudity, and there is nudity, never feels gratuitous. Jaw-dropping in places, yes. Cheap, never. The show has a clear sense of where the line is and enjoys getting right up to it.

Act Two opens with Alexander clocking the audience and delivering the line: "You boys are starting to look like my internet search history." It only gets better from there. Funny, filthy, and completely unexpected, the second act hits harder across the board and the room, by this point completely won over, goes with all of it.

It is the best night out in London right now. The kind where you look around at some point and notice that everyone in the room is having the same time, and you genuinely cannot wait to come back.

Sabrage is at Lafayette, 11 Goods Way, King's Cross, London N1C 4DP, until 6 September 2026.

Tickets from £25. Age 16+. sabrageshow.co.uk

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