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Edinburgh Fringe 2011

Cabaret Whore – More, More, More

Sarah-Louise Young Festival Highlight

Genre: Burlesque, Cabaret

Venue:

Underbelly

Festival:


Low Down

Four radically different women share their love of cabaret, men, their toy doll, love and, above all, themselves in a well-constructed hour of lyrical comedy.

Review

Sarah Louise Young has a real gift for characterising the sort of women that just live for an audience. Following a sell-out successes in each of the last two years, our self-confessed cabaret whore is back for More, More, More, forsaking the dimmer lit Free Fringe this year for the bright lights of the major venue that is the Underbelly. 

This year she is exhibiting a couple of old favourites and a brace of new divas, the common thread being a degree of narcissism that makes you cringe.  But they’re all different enough characters, allowing her to display her considerable talents in terms of vocal dexterity, accent and delivery. 
 
We started with American cabaret diva Berlie St Clair, une damme d’une certain age, fresh from a recent success at an Off, Off, Off Broadway location and a girl is clearly someway past her sing-by date. This was cleverly pitched as Young aged her voice to her character, no mean feat given she had to maintain sufficient volume to fill a packed auditorium. We then moved to the opposite end of the spectrum, meeting up again with young Karsha, a lady of indeterminate East European extraction, still feline like in that memorable purple cat suit and more than seductive enough for the men in the front row of the audience.
 
A further complete contrast followed as we met Baby Doll and Dolly, an odd couple who started out in 1978 when Baby Doll was the same height as Dolly. Thirty years later they’re still doing the same act, only Baby Doll now dwarfs her toy companion. Some people clearly never grow up, or perhaps want to. We concluded, as last year, with the satanic La Poule Plombee, a psychotic French femme fatale, complete with clinical depression, kitchen knife and a desire to do something unmentionable with Nicholas Sarkozy, lucky chap.
 
Young has created original, appropriate and sharp-witted lyrics for each of her excellently developed characters, allowing her to tell the story behind her creations in song and through the comedic patter between numbers. She is a natural impersonator with a versatile voice and a strong suite of accents. She’s also put a lot of thought into producing backing tracks that support the voice and personality of each character.   There is no danger of awkward pauses either as she changes characters as innovative voiceovers give her just about enough time to switch costumes in the wings.
 
This is a show has a lot to recommend it : the range and depth of the characters Young has developed, her obvious talent as a cabaret vocalist, the musical and lyrical content and the thought that has been put into costumes, lighting and sound. An amusing and entertaining hour.

Published

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Sarah-Louise Young