The London-based trio The Tiger Lillies are Martyn Jacques (songwriting, vocals, accordion, piano), Adrian Stout (double bass, bowed saw, theremin, backing vocals), and Budi Butenop (drums, percussion, backing vocals). Long seen as masters of dark, acoustic-led cabaret, they toured globally throughout the 2000s but have been absent from our shores for ten years.

This tour promotes their album Serenade From the Sewer, together with selections from their back catalogue. Songs typically allude to those Jacques describes as “living on the margins”, such as prostitutes, drug dealers, etc., apparently inspired by his own experience of 1980s Soho.

Critics have compared The Tiger Lillies to Amanda Palmer and others who reference 1920s Berliner cabaret, particularly the grim, poetic lyricism of Bertolt Brecht and his collaborators, such as composers Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler.

The Tiger Lillies. Photo supplied

The members of the Tiger Lillies are made up as Expressionist clowns, with white smeared across their faces contrasting with black, caricatural lips and skull-like eye sockets. They wear stylish three-piece suits and hats that could date from anywhere between 1920 and 1959. Jacques presents himself...