IT’S not every Saturday night that you can enjoy a cabaret show in Innerleithen, but on October 18 the local music festival is hosting a fundraising event with a difference!

Cabaret is a genre that’s been undergoing something of a revival in recent years. Now recognised in its own right by the largest arts festival in the world, the Edinburgh Fringe, its popularity is spreading further down the performing arts food chain.

The Two Moronnies, a double act featuring Les Morss and Tim Wilcock, makes a nod in terms of narrative style to the Two Ronnies and digs deep into that treasure trove of musical numbers and character sketches which have lain gathering dust in the attic for the past few decades.

Their shows contain the well-loved but possibly forgotten as well as introducing modern (and, at times, quite biting and satirical) lyrics to tunes that anyone from the age of eight to 80 can hum along to. Recent targets for their rapier wit have included the customer service ethics of a well-known budget airline, jobsworths in all walks of life, the desire of a certain person to become the ruler of his own country and a certain engineering project in Edinburgh that overran a bit.

Backed by the redoubtable Jean Arulanantham on piano and an assortment of local musicians from the Carlops Jazz Band, they gallop through songs made famous by Noel Coward, Flanders and Swann, Cole Porter, Peter Sellers, Gilbert and Sullivan, Kurt Weill, Victoria Wood, Tom Lehrer and many others. And the mellifluous, melancholic soprano tones of Annie Patch provides a nice counter-balance to the energetic, almost frenetic style of the two male voices.

The shows have what critics have described as “real pace and energy”. And their inventive use of costumes and some slick choreography means that the music is left to speak for itself, which it invariably does, guaranteeing an evening of entertainment that will live long in the memory – for all the right reasons.

The show takes place on Saturday October 18 at Innerleithen Union Club in Peebles Road, starting at 7.30pm.

Tickets cost £5, and are available in advance from Scotlight in Innerleithen High Street, by phoning 01721 729949 or at the door.