"Many whisper that Moira Finucane is in league with the dark forces of the underworld, that no performer could possess so much presence and range of ability without selling their soul to evil . Gotharama is such a spectacle, such a ravishing ride through the delicious dark side that is deserves to be watched by anyone with even the slightest interest in great performances. Even if you have to sell your soul to afford it, get yourself a ticket."

"With their supreme artistry, they have developed a highly theatrical performance style all of their own, utterly convincing and entirely original. This is cabaret.but not as we know it. Moira Finucane as the Queen of Dreams is a masterful storyteller, spinning each tale as though casting a spell. A highly physical performer, at times she contorts and manipulates her body like it belongs to someone else - at others, she commands with an intense stillness. As in previous shows, we see her terrify and stalk the stage like a spectre, but in Gotharama she also reveals a surprising emotional and performance range. This is such a clever and carefully constructed production - not a single moment is left to chance. And yet Gotharama wears its learning lightly, director Jackie Smith never losing sight of the main goal, that is to entertain. While it's not exactly what you'd call mainstream, Gotharama is a surprisingly accessible work and deserves to be as successful as the phenomenally popular Burlesque Hour. On every level this is an exceptional production, of which I can't speak highly enough."

"GIVEN that the realm of gothic embraces every kind of woman -- from virgin child to withered crone -- Moira Finucane is likely to have enough to occupy her wicked imagination for the rest of her life. And that is splendid, for few performers, except maybe Nick Cave, awaken the gothic as well as she. Finucane never fails to be hilarious and horrifying, nor to tell us some useful myths about the dangers of femininity

She is Mary Shelley's Bride of Frankenstein, screaming and writhing in undergarments that suggest the devices used to stop ladies ``abusing'' themselves. She is a head that has seemingly lost its body - and so it has, as she tells us in a sickening story of dismemberment by rot, mould and morbid bacteria. A favourite Finucane stunt - slipping into something white and being spattered with blood, like Stephen King's Carrie on prom night - naturally has its place in Gotharama. Most impressive, though, was Finucane in pink bikini, dutifully exposing her body in public as a modern girl is expected to, only to suffer the icy winds of the world. In a wordless few minutes, she metamorphosed from beach bimbo to dying maiden, to be born again as a well-clad Cruella de Vil. Finucane usually picks her co-stars right, and in pianist Carolyn Connors, a demure but deadly blonde, she has found the perfect conspirator."

"Jaw- smacked-wide- eyed wonderment ..! Gotharama's twists and turns dog the audience as they're enticed into a dark world which makes very few apologies and is often harshly confronting. This mad mix of cabaret, burlesque, and performance art is delivered to its hapless audience in thirteen gothic chapters ranging from gentle, poetically lush scenes to an all-out blood bath!"

"Delicious, unwholesome, and perhaps and little rancid; a little but Emily Bronte, a little bit Addams family, Finucane takes us through 13 monologues, mimes and dance routines about dark, morbid and bloody things. One of the highlights of theatre this year.high concept.high-camp literary gloss. you might like to think of Finucane as a latterday punk-feminist Gypsy Rose Lee (herself no literary slouch). Besides a startling stage presence, Finucane is also a remarkably talented writer... Behind the outre jokes and the fine sense of spectacle (Anna Tregloan's design, David Anderson's costumes, and Paul Jackson's lighting are all excellent) there is a knowing wit, and the monologues both bring forth horror and parody it. One of the highlights of theatre this year."

"Moira Finucane once again presents us with a wacky collection of perverse characters that can portray evil as subtly as Rebecca's Mrs Danvers, and are as over-the-top as any blood-soaked character from a 1970s B-grade horror film. Finucane and her wickedly talented pianist Carolyn Connors keep the audience thoroughly entertained in this highly polished Gothic cabaret. This production of a Gothic wonderland was obviously a team effort. Jackie Smith's direction allows the show to maintain a steady pacing throughout. Anna Tregloan's set design of a parlour enclosed within a large, blood-red curtain is minimal yet easily transformed to represent the innocent or the horrific, and is classically underpinned by Paul Jackson's lighting. Likewise, David Anderson's costumes completely capture a character's personality, be it a zombie or the girl-next-door. In the sonic area, Darrin Verhagen has created some sinister sound washes; while Carolyn Connors on piano and piano accordion is a great support to Finucane. Finucane is fantastic. Her monologues are beautifully crafted and her mime routines are kaleidoscopic. Gotharama is highly recommended, particularly for those who like a darker shade of cabaret."

"Nightmares of a different order are in no short supply in the latest "cabaret bizarre" by cross-genre artist Moira Finucane. Finucane's works merge elements of cabaret, dance, storytelling and sideshow, often playing on imagery equally grotesque and beautiful. Gotharama's near-dozen short vignettes betray a fascination with the Gothic in all of its definitions: from the trashy page-turner of the 18th century to the industrial-edged Goth subculture of today. But while the term has almost come to signify a repository of clichéd tropes, a kind of shorthand for creating suspense and the thrill of fear, Gotharama manages to reanimate the corpse of the Gothic through inventively reinterpreting the standard types of the form.

There are moments of Gothic intensity in which Finucane's performance approaches the sublime, in the philosophical sense: tableaux which cannot be assimilated through any frame of reference except their own heightened, hysterical brilliance. They are savage and erotic spectacles such as the Frankenstein-like "fair maid" who jerks manically to life, all bloodcurdling screams and erratic spider-walking, limbs flailing to a shattering industrial throb; or the closing vision of a Carrie-style figure spouting showers of blood and revelling in the carnage. But equally, Finucane's more measured and subtle moments of storytelling create uncanny and disquieting effects. A disembodied head upon a bed explains how a series of unfortunate events led to her present state; a young girl recounts a boat trip with a sinister older man bent on her destruction. There is much humour. In Buried Alive!, the victim cries, "I'm not dead! I'm not dead! I was just bored!

But the most eerie and understated piece, in my opinion, is A Sunny Day, in which a bikini-clad woman sits contently in the sun, which slowly disappears leaving her shivering with an increasing violence. Over the course of several minutes, and with not a word spoken, Finucane suggests a world of personal terror through the simple, natural process of growing cold. Finucane is able to switch from sledgehammer to slow-acting poison in a heartbeat, and in Gotharama she has created a show worthy of comparison with her best works of the past decade."

"Finucane and co-creator/director Jackie Smith have unfurled the spindly tendrils of the Gothic into umpteen incarnations. Gotharama proves utterly absorbing. This is a show for those who like blood, carnality, fetish culture, parlour music, or a good scary story on a dark and stormy night"

"Stunningly spectacular.Finucane shines.turning the most perfunctory shifts ( eg a sunny day turning to a cold day) into something particularly emotive. She may leave some of the audience perturbed, but that is the sign of an artist worth experiencing."

"'ve seen several Finucane/Smith works and this is the best way I can think of to describe them: they're like dreaming when you've got a fever. Like fever-dreams, the scenes are disturbing, unsettling, rich with symbolism and ridiculously hideous. And, like dreams, they're open to interpretation. I guess this makes art 'good' art, when there's space for the audience to create meaning. The setting for Gotharama doesn't end with the stage, which has the effect of immersing the audience in a gothic-plane.

Finucane slips from character to character as smoothly as she changes costume (which she does at least ten times). The costumes were exquisite. At times I felt as though the other characters in the scene were present - which is a testament to Finucane's strength as a solo performer. she uses her whole body powerfully to create her characters. Moira Finucane is mesmerising"

"Darkly beautiful, witty and ironic. Moira Finucane's obviously been raised reading Poe, Dickinson, Henry James, Mary Shelley, and she's been able to bring the best elements of such to a modern stage - all while poking gentle and ironic fun at the clichés of the genre. And a rich vein it is to mine, embracing everything from the gory, the overly-romantic, the old-fashioned, the opulent, the melodramatic - and all related through the timeless skills of a master raconteur. Too rarely do we attend an event where someone just tells us a story. Finucane's is a world of silent films, gypsies, sea-faring adventures, crushed velvet, blood-red and night-black, accordions, wind, upright pianos, and villains and heroines. Finucane and accompanying pianist Carolyn Connors show us that what is truly gothic is steeped in the literary, the musical, and our most basic of human fears and longings. Their accompanying music itself is telling: Offenbach, Basie, Chopin, Hiller, Glass, Strauss, Saint Saens, and a whole lot of others you'd likely never heard from but should. Next time Finucane comes to town, put on your smoking jacket and imagination, and go see her."