Dusty Limits
Encyclopedia
Dusty Limits is a cabaret singer and comedian based in the United Kingdom, and one of the leading figures on the “new cabaret” scene.
, Australia, and made his European debut in 1999. He has a three-and-a-half octave vocal range, and is notable for his interpretations of the songs of Kurt Weill
, Cole Porter
, Noël Coward
, Tom Waits
, Stephen Sondheim
, Jacques Brel
, Portishead, Tom Lehrer
, David Bowie
and Nick Cave
. He also writes original songs, usually with a macabre or satirical twist, including such songs as "I Am A Jolly Self-Harmer" and "Cocaine Socialist".
Since 1992, he has also performed as an actor on stage and film, sometimes also performing under the name of Dorian Black. From 2003 to 2005, he had his own monthly show in London under the titles Dusty Limits and Friends and Dusty Limits Etc. Since 2003 he has performed every year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, either in his own one-man cabarets and as host and programmer of variety nights including the Vaudeville at the Bongo Club. He most recently hosted the Bongo Club Cabaret in 2010. He was also for a number of years a judge and occasionally compere for the Tap Water Awards.
He has appeared on the bill with many of the leading performers in the worlds of neo-Weimar
cabaret and burlesque, including Amanda Palmer
, Camille O'Sullivan
, Justin Bond
, Meow Meow
, Miss Behave, Empress Stah, Jonny Woo, The Luminescent Orchestrii, Fancy Chance, Paul L Martin, Immodesty Blaize
, Kittie Klaw, Roxy Velvet, Gill Manly, Taylor Mac, Amy G, Baby Dee, Daniel Isengart, Ali McGregor
, Nathan Evans and Holly Penfield. He appeared at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in an evening of celebrity interviews which included Ruby Wax, Miriam Margolyes and Belinda Lang.
In 2004, he performed at the Brisbane International Cabaret Festival. In 2006, he performed at Don't Tell Mama
and Joe's Pub
in New York City. He also appeared on the bill of Weimar New York at the Spiegeltent
in 2007.
In 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Dusty Limits hosted a nightly revue at the Bongo Club Cabaret. In 2007, he was winner in the Ministry of Burlesque Awards for both Best Male Singer and Best Male Performer. Ministry of Burlesque performance at Glasgow's High Tease
In October 2007, he premiered a new show, The Picture of Dusty Limits, co-hosted by burlesque sword-swallower Miss Behave. It featured a number of original songs by Dusty Limits and his musical collaborator and accompanist, Michael Roulston. It has been reprised several times, being largely rewritten and updated each time. Most recently, he performed a completely revised version of the show at the Famous Spiegeltent as part of the Edinburgh Fringe, garnering 5-star reviews.
In 2008, Dusty Limits appeared as a guest performer in the sell-out season of Miss Behave's Variety Nighty at The Roundhouse
in Camden
, North London. He has also been engaged in writing for Mr Donne's Particular Cabinet, a full-length 'narrative cabaret' show.
From 2007 to 2009 Dusty has programmed and hosted a monthly new-cabaret showcase at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern called first Kabarett and then KUNST, which means 'Art' in German. The night features both established and up-and-coming performers and has included a number of noteworthy artists on the European cabaret circuit, such as Fancy Chance, Frisky and Mannish
, Bourgeois and Maurice, Chrisalys, Desmond O'Connor and Lucifire.
In 2009 he was one of four major neo-cabaret artists to perform as part of Space Oddities, an evening of cabaret dedicated to retro-futurism. The others were Ruby Blues, Jonny Woo and Empress Stah.
He has appeared every year from 2002 in the Battersea Barge pantomime, which he has written and directed several times. Most recently, he performed as Hildegaard Von Boss, in Cinderella and the Glass Ceiling.
In 2008 he co-produced a mock wedding which included performances by many of London's top cabaret and burlesque artistes.
In May 2010 he was one of a handful of top London cabaret artists to perform at the Time Out Alternative Eurovision competition. He performed an original song entitled "Je Suis Eurostar", a parody of Eurovision, under the name 'Dana Euronational'. He is shortly to perform as part of the Grimeborn Festival in a short experimental opera piece entitled CROW, with music by Michael Roulston. He most recently appeared at the Famous Spiegeltent as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in his one-man show The Picture of Dusty Limits, to outstanding reviews.,,
'
Dusty was also interviewed for the BBC Radio 2 program Come to the Cabaret, which featured interviewees including Lisa Appignanesi, Paloma Faith, Julian Clary, Amy Saunders, Immodesty Blaize and Barry Cryer and was hosted by Paul O'Grady.
In January 2011, Dusty was one of ten cabaret artists, including David Hoyle and EastEnd Cabaret
, who had their own Time Out London cover in a special edition celebrating the resurgence of cabaret.
and Ute Lemper
.
Dusty was featured on the cover of TIme Out issue 1958, the Sex and Books issue, as part of a group of five leading burlesque
artistes, and solo on page 20 where he is posed reading a book in a standing pose.
Te Time Out review of 2008 (December 18 edition) named Dusty Limits as one of the four main neo-cabaret guards, (along with Jonny Woo, Justin Bond and Empress Stah) who had done "exceptional work". In the same issue he was also one of the 10 "scene leaders" invited to share their personal highlights of the year in the Social Club section feature.
Biography
Dusty Limits first appeared in cabaret in BrisbaneBrisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Australia, and made his European debut in 1999. He has a three-and-a-half octave vocal range, and is notable for his interpretations of the songs of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
, Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
, Noël Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
, Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
, Jacques Brel
Jacques Brel
Jacques Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter who composed and performed literate, thoughtful, and theatrical songs that generated a large, devoted following in France initially, and later throughout the world. He was widely considered a master of the modern chanson...
, Portishead, Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
and Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional film actor.He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1984, a group known for its eclectic influences and...
. He also writes original songs, usually with a macabre or satirical twist, including such songs as "I Am A Jolly Self-Harmer" and "Cocaine Socialist".
Since 1992, he has also performed as an actor on stage and film, sometimes also performing under the name of Dorian Black. From 2003 to 2005, he had his own monthly show in London under the titles Dusty Limits and Friends and Dusty Limits Etc. Since 2003 he has performed every year at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, either in his own one-man cabarets and as host and programmer of variety nights including the Vaudeville at the Bongo Club. He most recently hosted the Bongo Club Cabaret in 2010. He was also for a number of years a judge and occasionally compere for the Tap Water Awards.
He has appeared on the bill with many of the leading performers in the worlds of neo-Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
cabaret and burlesque, including Amanda Palmer
Amanda Palmer
Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer , sometimes known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, is an American performer who first rose to prominence as the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the duo The Dresden Dolls...
, Camille O'Sullivan
Camille O'Sullivan
Camille O'Sullivan is a Irish singer, actress, and entertainer. -Background:...
, Justin Bond
Justin Bond
Justin Vivian Bond , formerly simply Justin Bond, is an American singer-songwriter, performance artist, occasional actor and Radical Faerie. Described as a "fixture of the New York avant-garde", Bond arose to notability playing the role of Kiki DuRayne in the drag cabaret act Kiki and Herb from the...
, Meow Meow
Melissa Madden Gray
Melissa Madden Gray, stage name Meow Meow, is an Australian-born actress, dancer and cabaret performer who tours internationally. Gray has been particularly active in the UK where she appeared in La Clique at the Roundhouse and created the rôle of the Maîtresse in the West End musical adaptation...
, Miss Behave, Empress Stah, Jonny Woo, The Luminescent Orchestrii, Fancy Chance, Paul L Martin, Immodesty Blaize
Immodesty Blaize
Immodesty Blaize is a British burlesque dancer who performs internationally. She was crowned Reigning Queen of Burlesque in June 2007 at the Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame formerly known as Exotic World.- Rise to fame :Her ethnic heritage is Croatian, Russian and Irish...
, Kittie Klaw, Roxy Velvet, Gill Manly, Taylor Mac, Amy G, Baby Dee, Daniel Isengart, Ali McGregor
Ali McGregor
Ali McGregor is an Australian opera singer, actress and cabaret performer.-Career:McGregor, who was born in Melbourne, studied music at the Australian National University before completing her Bachelor of Music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK as a Peter Moores Scholar...
, Nathan Evans and Holly Penfield. He appeared at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in an evening of celebrity interviews which included Ruby Wax, Miriam Margolyes and Belinda Lang.
In 2004, he performed at the Brisbane International Cabaret Festival. In 2006, he performed at Don't Tell Mama
Don't tell mama
Don't Tell Mama is a piano bar and cabaret located at 343 West 46th Street in New York City, USA, known in part for being featured on the TV show Friends....
and Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub at Public Theater is a nightclub that hosts live performances regularly. The venue, which is a non-profit operation, is located at 425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in Manhattan, New York City...
in New York City. He also appeared on the bill of Weimar New York at the Spiegeltent
Spiegeltent
A Spiegeltent is a large travelling tent, constructed in wood and canvas and decorated with mirrors and stained glass, intended as an entertainment venue...
in 2007.
In 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Dusty Limits hosted a nightly revue at the Bongo Club Cabaret. In 2007, he was winner in the Ministry of Burlesque Awards for both Best Male Singer and Best Male Performer. Ministry of Burlesque performance at Glasgow's High Tease
In October 2007, he premiered a new show, The Picture of Dusty Limits, co-hosted by burlesque sword-swallower Miss Behave. It featured a number of original songs by Dusty Limits and his musical collaborator and accompanist, Michael Roulston. It has been reprised several times, being largely rewritten and updated each time. Most recently, he performed a completely revised version of the show at the Famous Spiegeltent as part of the Edinburgh Fringe, garnering 5-star reviews.
In 2008, Dusty Limits appeared as a guest performer in the sell-out season of Miss Behave's Variety Nighty at The Roundhouse
The Roundhouse
The Roundhouse is a Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England, which has been converted into a performing arts and concert venue. It was originally built in 1847 as a roundhouse , a circular building containing a railway turntable, but was only used for railway...
in Camden
Camden Town
-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...
, North London. He has also been engaged in writing for Mr Donne's Particular Cabinet, a full-length 'narrative cabaret' show.
From 2007 to 2009 Dusty has programmed and hosted a monthly new-cabaret showcase at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern called first Kabarett and then KUNST, which means 'Art' in German. The night features both established and up-and-coming performers and has included a number of noteworthy artists on the European cabaret circuit, such as Fancy Chance, Frisky and Mannish
Frisky and Mannish
Frisky & Mannish is a musical comedy cabaret double act based in London, England.Formed in March 2008 by writers and performers Laura Corcoran and Matthew Floyd Jones, the duo is best known for a style of pop culture parody that consists of the musical and dramatic rearrangement of well-known pop...
, Bourgeois and Maurice, Chrisalys, Desmond O'Connor and Lucifire.
In 2009 he was one of four major neo-cabaret artists to perform as part of Space Oddities, an evening of cabaret dedicated to retro-futurism. The others were Ruby Blues, Jonny Woo and Empress Stah.
He has appeared every year from 2002 in the Battersea Barge pantomime, which he has written and directed several times. Most recently, he performed as Hildegaard Von Boss, in Cinderella and the Glass Ceiling.
In 2008 he co-produced a mock wedding which included performances by many of London's top cabaret and burlesque artistes.
In May 2010 he was one of a handful of top London cabaret artists to perform at the Time Out Alternative Eurovision competition. He performed an original song entitled "Je Suis Eurostar", a parody of Eurovision, under the name 'Dana Euronational'. He is shortly to perform as part of the Grimeborn Festival in a short experimental opera piece entitled CROW, with music by Michael Roulston. He most recently appeared at the Famous Spiegeltent as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in his one-man show The Picture of Dusty Limits, to outstanding reviews.,,
'
Dusty was also interviewed for the BBC Radio 2 program Come to the Cabaret, which featured interviewees including Lisa Appignanesi, Paloma Faith, Julian Clary, Amy Saunders, Immodesty Blaize and Barry Cryer and was hosted by Paul O'Grady.
In January 2011, Dusty was one of ten cabaret artists, including David Hoyle and EastEnd Cabaret
EastEnd Cabaret
EastEnd Cabaret are a musical comedy cabaret duo based in London, England, originally formed in late 2009.EastEnd Cabaret consists of Bernadette Byrne , a pan-European chanteuse of mysterious origin, and Victor Victoria , a bilateral hermaphrodite reminiscent of the "sideshow" male/female...
, who had their own Time Out London cover in a special edition celebrating the resurgence of cabaret.
2010
Dusty interviewed for BBC Radio 2 program, Come to the Cabaret, hosted by Paul O'Grady. Dusty speaks mainly on the history of Berlin cabaret and the role of the Emcee.2008
Dusty Limits was one of three cabaret performers profiled by a Newsweek article examining the resurgence of cabaret, the others being Michael FeinsteinMichael Feinstein
Michael Jay Feinstein is an American singer, pianist, and music revivalist. He is an interpreter of, and an anthropologist and archivist for, the repertoire known as the Great American Songbook. In 1988 he won a Drama Desk Special Award for celebrating American musical theatre songs...
and Ute Lemper
Ute Lemper
Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill.- Biography :Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16...
.
Dusty was featured on the cover of TIme Out issue 1958, the Sex and Books issue, as part of a group of five leading burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
artistes, and solo on page 20 where he is posed reading a book in a standing pose.
Te Time Out review of 2008 (December 18 edition) named Dusty Limits as one of the four main neo-cabaret guards, (along with Jonny Woo, Justin Bond and Empress Stah) who had done "exceptional work". In the same issue he was also one of the 10 "scene leaders" invited to share their personal highlights of the year in the Social Club section feature.