Suddenly, the jarring sound of a doorbell rips through the charged silence No one moves. The mounting tension of expectation is finally snapped by Trisk (Paul Hunter) who clambers up unexpectedly through a trapdoor. Meanwhile, Lika (Hayley Carmichael) idly reads a newspaper behind the bar of her deserted and run-down pub. It’s a clue to the atmosphere of sweet melancholy that pervades this beautifully crafted, peculiarly absorbing production from the genuinely innovative Told by an Idiot company.

Smiling fixedly into the distance and wearing a party hat crown, Mister Deka D (Richard Clews) sits astride the light bursting through the splintered floorboards of Naomi Wilkinson’s arrestingly raked set. But like the front of their album – which shows Dulaney as a kitsch Virgin Mary figure – it’s all fake The kind of fake that is the making of a real star.FS. AS THE lights go down, the wistful descending phrases of Leonard Bernstein’s “Some Other Time” wash over you. Think Blondie, PJ Harvey or Courtney Love and you’re only halfway to understanding her sinister appeal.Indeed, if I hadn’t seen Dulaney hooting with laughter only minutes before the show, I’d have assumed that she was a truly nasty piece of work. Even the band lurk deferentially in the shadows, safe in the knowledge that if they took their clothes off and set fire to themselves, all eyes would still be on their singer.The music – laid-back grooves and trashy indie pop with a Bjork-like twist – appears secondary to her magnificent presence. But the band’s true asset is Jacqui Dulaney, a casino croupier from upstate New York whose edgy vocals carry an oppressive air of tragedy.The stage is hers from the start.

As she scans the crowd with a mixture of dispassion and disdain, we are each stared into submission. Tyler Coppin, writer and star of the work, conveys to an extent Sir Robert’s dazzling and pioneering eccentricity, but the odd wonderful line aside, the unremitting high camp ultimately becomes tedious.Rachel HalliburtonPOPCha Cha CohenThe Attic, CowgateWith two ex-members of the Wedding Present on board, Cha Cha Cohen were never going to slip by unnoticed. He once claimed that he was born feet first, ready to dance the moment he sprang from his mother’s womb. In his native South Australia, he cocooned himself away in layers of Max Factor, exploding into multi- coloured life only when his father found him a place with Anna Pavlova’s ballet-company.This is the kind of show that you will either love or hate.