⭐️⭐️⭐️and a half
CVNT is not a show you simply watch. It is something that happens to you.
From the moment the lights go down at 7:50pm, it is clear this is not conventional comedy, or even conventional performance.
It feels closer to what it must have been like to witness the very first live screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, except stranger, darker, and far more confrontational. The costuming and makeup are deliberately unsettling. The vocalisations are unsettling. The physicality is disturbing by design. Nothing here is accidental.
Led by a giant, hyper-sexualised vulva, the show oscillates wildly between comedy, cult ritual, erotic disco, anatomy lesson, therapy session, horror performance and something vaguely religious. At times it feels like Oprah meets exorcism. At others, like an initiation ceremony you did not realise you signed up for.
Audience participation is a core part of the experience, but consent is handled clearly and explicitly. The performer provides a very visible “NO” sign and loudly reinforces that “no means no.” Participation is encouraged, sometimes insistently, but boundaries are respected and clearly articulated.
The 7:50pm time slot plays an interesting role in how the show lands. This feels like a performance that would thrive with a looser, later-night crowd, perhaps after a few drinks and a shedding of inhibitions.
At the same time, the earlier start forces the discomfort. You are alert, sober, and fully present, which only heightens the intensity. That tension feels deliberate, and very much part of the point. However, the earlier time slot also exposed an unintended tension: the show ran over time, and in such an immersive performance, those necessary exits briefly shattered the spell.
The venue’s tight seating amplifies the claustrophobic intensity of the show. On a sold-out night, it was hot, sticky and uncomfortably intimate before the performance even began. When the opening strains of a warped “Don’t You Want Me Baby” creep in, the audience laughs nervously, the kind of laughter that comes from not knowing how else to respond. Some people lean in. Others visibly recoil.
To the performer’s credit, she gradually pulls much of the audience into her orbit. There are genuine laughs, moments of release, and flashes of brilliance where the absurdity becomes undeniably funny. There are also unexpectedly educational moments, where the show veers into blunt, unapologetic anatomy lessons that feel both informative and deliberately shocking.
Still, not everyone comes along for the ride.
There are head shakes. Folded arms. Faces that clearly say, “Absolutely not”.
This is comedy and performance art designed to unsettle. It is aggressively sexual, profane, crass, confrontational and intentionally uncomfortable. If swearing, bodily imagery, or sexual content make you uneasy, this is a show where you would be better off choosing something else.
To be fair, a show titled CVNT does not exactly mislead you about what you are walking into.
This is not a casual post-dinner choice. You have to arrive ready for CVNT.
There are moments where the show becomes oddly compelling, even exhilarating, before veering sharply back into deeply unsettling territory. You may leave unsure whether you laughed, recoiled, learned something new about anatomy, or participated in something closer to an experimental art ritual than a comedy set.
Would I see it again? Probably not.
But CVNT is not built for rewatching. It is built to lodge itself in your brain, demanding to be unpacked days later, possibly years later. In that sense, it succeeds completely.
Brilliant? Disturbing? Hilarious? Educational? Traumatic?
Yes. All of the above.