“Love is a lot like a bubble,” so the queen of Australian cabaret, Meow Meow, tells us. “It starts off shiny and wonderful and miraculous, but then it pops, leaving you covered in a sticky residue.” Brimming with wonderfully witty, deliciously salacious musings like this, Meow Meow’s most recent creation, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s aquatic fable, is a slick, savvy and ever so sexy sashay through the briny deep. Using the Little Mermaid’s quest for love as a jumping off point for a hysterical ramble through her own chequered romantic past, Meow Meow is more interested in sending herself up than her source material. In her own words, she isn’t waving, she’s clowning.

A heady mix of Marlene Dietrich, Dita Von Teese and Princess Margaret circa 1950, with a voice as smooth as satin and as intoxicating as absinth, this 21st-century chanteuse is an irresistibly seductive presence on stage. Despite this sultry packaging, Meow Meow has an unquenchable need to be adored, and it’s this curious combination of burlesque bravado and charming befuddlement that grabs hold of an audience, hook, line and sinker.

But there’s more to this cabaret visionary than smoky vocals, double entendres and a nearly untameable cleavage. There’s...