Trashed Organ Broken Christmas Cabaret

The Broken Christmas Cabaret was a fabulously trashy success. The piano had been drinking, the fairy lights were on the blink and we were gently sozzled on the bright green cocktails.

We'd been in the Broad Chare immediately before things at Live kicked off. What followed was a continuous succession of edgy alternatives to the normal festive celebrations.

The cuckoos had advice on everything from what not to do at office parties to ways to redevelop the 12 days song.

Noize Choir whirled luminous tubes whilst harmoniously singing entire carols backwards.

We all had bubbles and small incendiary devices to detonate. Secret Santa had also taken a perverse turn with his present selections. I found myself on the naughty list.

Tim Turnbull let us into the secrets of a somewhat off-beat dinner party before bringing in some Dionysian parallels to keep us all thinking. Then Paddy Campbell reminded us that even last resort help desks have seasonal moments. Monkey Junk plugged in and slid some excellent foot-stomping blues.

Just time for a top-up of wine and some head in bucket singing before Mary appeared, ably represented by Alison Carr, who auditioned the part (very) completely.

Kate Fox featured a range of poems before adding an accompanying ukelele and a rather adapted form of Hallelujah. Like many of us, she admitted she really quite liked this season.

And to wrap the performed part of the evening we had Matt Stalker and Fable, who played their own songs plus one from Bon Iver before moving to a festive finale.

John and Melanie, Gez and Rosie then recited their way through the Trashed Laureate compilation and the final trashed port of the year was awarded.

A brilliant set of performances and, as luck would have it, the bar was also still running, so now it was time to move on to the less structured section of the evening and - er - morning.