By Anne-Louise Fortune
Night of 1000 Tentacles was the grand finale event of the 2023 London Lovecraft Festival. Hosted by drag queen Dolly Trolley, wearing a dress replete with a truly disturbing amount of googly eyes, she led us on a joyful romp through an hour of tentacled cabaret magnificence.
Having led us in song, and introduced the evening, Dolly brought on the first of two burlesque acts of the evening, Foxi Blue, who presented a playful homage to all things arachnid. In a dramatic and very imaginative performance, Foxy drew the audience into their fun and extravagant world.
Following Foxy came Luspinda, a truly phenomenal hula hoop artist who held the audience mesmerised with their skill and wit. Adding some cheerleading pom-poms to their slate, they spun, whirled, twirled, and hula’d in an act that channelled a cheeky nod to wider Lovecraft-influenced media.
Next was John Callaghan, who dealt a fine line in wordplay and puns, inserting the names of various of Lovecraft’s monsters into well-known song lyrics. Having wound through the theme to the Muppet show, Tequila and a mash-up of Jingle Bells and Lizzo’s ‘Bout Damn Time, John’s act reached its climax with a brilliantly realised version of Favourite Things, which the audience enthusiastically joined in with.
Perhaps surprisingly, the next thing in the running order was a quiz, specifically, prize charades. In true QI-style, the audience won, having managed to identify which Lovecraft stories Dolly was miming, to the utter befuddlement of most of those in the room.
The final act of the night was Strawberry Moon, who was also the second burlesque act of the evening. Merging an homage to the movie Titanic with tentacles and featuring a cuddly-toy octopus, this was a performance that didn’t take itself too seriously.
Overall, this was a queer, gender-bent, glorious celebration of monsters and madness. Lovecraft would almost certainly have hated the whole thing, which in our opinion, makes it all the more enjoyable.
