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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Sarah Frater's rating
Reader rating
Description: The Belgian artist explores present-day society, its needs for excess and indulgances, with his company of dancers and actors. Contains language and scenes of explicit nature, suitable for ages 16 and over.
Trains: Tube: Waterloo 
Phone: 0871663 2500
Website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk
Extra info: Pub, Air Conditioning, Food, Telephones
Radical: Jesus gets a makeover
Absurd: dancers go hog wild in Fabre’s new work
Jan Fabre has a reputation as a radical and it is much deserved. Most productions promising provocative material make do with the F-word and same-sex nudity, barely beginner grade by Fabre’s standards. The Belgium-based theatre-maker pushes at what used to be called decency, with a kind of extreme burlesque that mocks our rampant materialism and moral incontinence. Think of a mix of Abu Ghraib and a pornographic Hello!.
In a programme note, his work is described as dragging us along by that which is “simultaneously disgusting and tantalising”. His method is to make our excesses so funny that we forget we are watching a masturbation competition where the thoroughbred participants are goaded by their ejaculatory trainers.
The five men look like Croatian thugs and the four women like Helmut Newton models, and they go hog-wild, with chunks of the action unprintable in a family newspaper. Suffice to say that one scene involves what looks like a man inserting the muzzle of a gun into a place that needs a lubricant.
One scene I can describe features a woman humping a designer handbag, being humped back by a designer sofa then giving birth astride a shopping trolley to all manner of bling including a loaded hand gun. In another painfully funny sequence Jesus Christ is made over by a French fashion magazine maven, who coos: “Do you love girls or boys? I bet you love everyone!”
In another, two Americans boast of their whiteness while donning Ku Klux Klan robes then doing what looks like a Michael Jackson moon walk. Should he sue?
The Klan hood reappears in an Abu Ghraib spoof, followed by a shopping trolley waltz, to Blue Danube, of course. There are also quite a lot of stage drugs and what look like real cigarettes.
The main criticism of Fabre’s work is that its targets are too easy. Abu Ghraib. Tick. Shopping and f****ing. Tick. Bankers who socialise debt and privatise profits. Tick.
Another is that the material is insufficiently metamorphosed for the stage and occasionally verges on the freak show.
This is all valid but doesn’t undermine Fabre’s ability to weave comedy and grotesquerie into potent theatre. The 90-minute piece is predominantly speech-based, although there is a patchwork soundtrack and the final danced scene is thrillingly done. And the timing is brilliant, with the comic coat-tailing the macabre.
Tonight only (0871 663 2580, www.southbankcenre.co.uk).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
