John Callaghan on Cabaret Electro at Aces & Eights
After the success of our 2025 Camden Fringe Interviews, we thought it only right to attempt a repeat for 2026. So throughout July we’ll be publishing new interviews each day to give a taste of what to expect from London’s best fringe theatre festival. The festival starts Monday 3 August this year, so we may give ourselves a couple of days off inbetween the end of the interviews and the first shows… then again, we might not.
You can find out more about Camden Fringe, along with details of every show playing this August here. You can also find all of this year’s interviews as they are published here.
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like to combine an arpeggiator with the game Twister, or what a “Biblically accurate guardian angel” made from a dog-sized inflatable butterfly looks like, look no further.
This August, Aces & Eights welcomes back a true fringe original: John Callaghan’s Cabaret Electro. Blending electronic music, original lyrics, and a hefty dose of completely unashamed absurdity, this show is a masterclass in experimental, DIY silliness. Armed with an ever-expanding collection of cardboard and tinfoil contraptions, John turns electronic music performance into a fully interactive, gleefully bizarre experience.
We caught up with the mastermind behind the music to talk about turning audience members into human synth keys, bleeding multi-coloured bubble bath, and why K-9 from Doctor Who would be the perfect actor to play him in a biopic.
If you had to describe the vibe of your show in just one sentence, what would it be?
The show has been described as “experimental absurdity, electronic music, original lyrics and plenty of random silliness” (Sascha Cooper). Seems about correct!
Why is 2026 the perfect time for this show to be seen?
Because that’s when it’s on. If you tried to watch it in a different year, it might not be happening.
A less glib answer is that most of it is autobiographical, and if I feel this way, maybe others will appreciate seeing someone share that.
Fringe shows usually mean bare-minimum sets. How have you tackled this with your staging and props?
Every year, I create a new costume or electronic music set-up that I hope is going to simplify everything… And then I end up adding it to the collection I already schlep to every show, so it’s one more bit of gubbins. Fortunately, most of it’s made of cardboard and tinfoil, so it’s fairly light.
How important is audience interaction to your performance?
I’m trying to share aspects of myself that I’m eager to express, and a receptive audience is vital for that. I don’t get members of the audience on stage to embarrass them, the only person who could be embarrassed in my show is me, and I have no shame! If I ever get anyone to help me on-stage, it’ll always be to do something cool (such as turning people into keys on an audience-sized synthesiser).
Who would play you in the Hollywood adaptation of your future autobiography?
There’s a cliche that asexual people are often represented by robots, but I wouldn’t object to being played by K-9 from Doctor Who.
If you had to describe your show as a colour what would it be?
The colours you see when you stand up too quickly.
If your show had a soundtrack, what songs would definitely be on it?
I mean… I hope they’d be my songs, which are already the soundtrack to the show. If only for PRS purposes.
If your show was a love letter to a specific person, place, or era, who or what would it be?
Ha! I’m aromantic as well as asexual. So ner.
If you could perform this show anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
I once made a music video on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, so a whole gig up there would be interesting. It’d be about the right size for my typical audience numbers, too.
What’s the weirdest or most unconventional prop used in your show?
I tried to fill a full-sized inflatable man with helium to float around and represent the “devil/angel on your shoulder” you see in cartoons, but the woman in the greeting card shop was laughing too much to do it. So I used a helium-filled inflatable butterfly the size of a dog and stuck loads of eyes onto it, as a “Biblically accurate guardian angel”.
I’ve also used: a beachball-sized eyeball tied to my belt that followed me about and knocked over tables because the venue was smaller than I thought; overalls that leaked “multi-coloured blood” (actually bubble bath with food colouring); and I’m currently working on a doll’s head that an audience member can use to play a synth solo.
If budget or reality was not an issue, what’s the one piece of scenery/set you’d love to have in your show?
I’d combine the game Twister with an arpeggiator.
What’s the most valuable piece of advice you’ve received during your career?
Apart from to always warm up your voice before singing, don’t apologise on stage. The audience don’t know what you don’t do. They only see what you do do, so don’t get l’esprit d’escalier (“Oh! I should have done this!”).
What words of advice would you give anyone thinking about doing Camden Fringe next year?
Do it. Because the alternative to doing anything is not doing it.
Many thanks to John for sharing his madness with us. Cabaret Electro plays at Aces and Eights on Sunday 16 August as part of Camden Fringe.
You can find out more about John here.
