L’Hôtel is a big, ambitious French kiss: sultry singers, graceful and sexy physical performers, nudity and intrigue, all launched as a dine-and-luxuriate 90-minute show as part of the opening weekend of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Audience members with premium tickets ($150) are seated at round tables within the Space Theatre at the Adelaide Festival Centre and offered a French cheese board, a small French éclair and a glass of French champagne soon after arrival.

Caroline Nin in L’Hôtel. Photo © Claudio Raschella

For the first half hour, well-presented waitresses in white outfits periodically break into simple choreographed dance routines around the tables as they deliver our set meals and additional drink orders.

The anticipation builds, as we see before us a lavish set: a gorgeous two-storey hotel, with rooms up top, and down the bottom level a spa bath area to the left, concierge desk in the middle, and a piano on the right.

There are some structural problems with the show. Several times for the first 30 minutes, the lights go brighter or the concierge bell rings, indicating the show is about to begin, but these are all teasing false starts.

The pre-recorded music is played too...