Review: Cole Porter songs, gay men's saunas and violent porn, courtesy of The Tiger Lillies, DV8 Physical Theatre and RashDash

SEX, love and lust were handled in different ways in three very contrasting touring shows that visited Leeds. Then again, when Cole Porter songs, gay men's saunas and the rise in violent porn were the subjects of those shows, they were bound to be poles apart, yet linked by the boundless possibilities of theatre.

Cult cabaret act The Tiger Lillies have enjoyed a long association with Leeds, both with the Playhouse, where Shockheaded Peter made such a startling debut, and with Opera North at Leeds Grand Theatre.

To complement this autumn's Kiss Me, Kate, Opera North Projects commissioned the Lillies to present their interpretation of Cole Porter's show songs in Love For Sale for one night only in Manchester, Leeds and Gateshead.

Lead Lilly Martyn Jacques promised a night of "delight, despair and delirium", a delicious forewarning that he and Adrian Stout would locate the dark underbelly and mystery, as well as the tenderness, beauty, romance and wicked wit, in the Porter portfolio.

Their faces painted in spectral white and black, Jacques played piano, accordion and DIY ukulele with the dainty demeanour of Oliver Hardy's table manners and a higher voice than a wailing Stan Laurel. Stout, in his bold check suit, had the air of a butler wanting to break free from decorum, accompanying attentively on wobbly bass, theremin and carpenter's saw and violin bow.

True to Jacques' word, Porter's songs took on a new light, a new shade, a new lyric or two in some cases, from the salacious sauciness of Let's Do It to the exquisitely pained Miss Otis Regrets, via diversions into the fruitiest of The Tiger Lillies' own dark confections. An album and more shows will surely follow.

DV8 Physical Theatre in John. Picture: Kris Rozental

From one completely assured performance to another: DV8 Physical Theatre's John, a piece of verbatim theatre conceived and directed by Lloyd Newson.

This Australian innovator with a past in psychology no longer attends dance shows, believing the art form to be too limiting without language; instead, after many years, he has decided to align choreography with text in his last three pieces, and it makes for a new theatrical language, where the body shapes to the words being said by the remarkably lithe performers.

In this case, on a rotating stage, the show moved from the story of John (Hannes Langolf), and his life of grime, crime and abuse, to stories of men, including John, in gay saunas. All life was here, told with dazzling physicality and intense humanity.

RashDash, by comparison with The Tiger Lillies and DV8, are still in their milk teeth years and this inexperience showed in We Want You To Watch, where the subject of pornography proved too big for them to address with coherent thought.

Bash-bash, but just steering clear of slapdash, RashDash have an excess of energy but need greater focus and much better editing.