Events

What's on in London: Kiki & Herb Are Trying!

Queer cabaret at its peak.

Gaydar

03 Jul 2025 — 2 min read

Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman are back on stage in London as Kiki & Herb. The show is called Kiki & Herb are Trying!

For over two decades, Bond and Mellman - in their embodiment of Kiki and Herb - have been setting the standard for queer cabaret.

Opening night at Soho Theatre's Walthamstow outpost was my first experience of a Kiki & Herb experience and I wasn't sure if it was going to be my kind of thing.

The enthusiastic audience all seemed to be long-time fans who were locked in for a good time as soon as the house lights went down.

While the set-up is classic cabaret - Herb is on piano and Kiki is the world-weary chanteuse belting out numbers - there's a dark twisted sense of humour running through the whole thing that subversively draws you in and delights in wrong-footing you.

The long-standing collaboration between the two performers clearly gives them a confidence and a safety net - they know how to share the stage, they know how to meander from one number into the other, they know that it doesn't matter if the words are right are wrong - they are playing boozy cabaret performers and that gives you a lot of leeway in how you deliver a tune or an anecdote.

Some of the most memorable moments were the audience interactions as Kiki turned her gaze into the stalls. Also the torch-song reinterpretations of pop classics is a smart way to hook in newer audiences - as Kiki slurred her way into the opening lines of a track, everything sounded familiar but surreal. Kiki's version of Taylor Swift's Anti-Hero was mesmerising.

It's only a short run but if you get a chance to get to Walthamstow to see Kiki & Herb it's a masterclass in singing songs, telling stories, being funny, and unleashing your queer power.