Round She Goes

As I said earlier, I went to see Round She Goes, featuring the delightful Amy G and her equally delightful double bass player John, tonight in the Bosco Theatre. And what an odd thing it was.

Amy spent most of the show skating around the stage singing and playing a ukelele while her deadpan bassist watched from the side adding occasional vocals and frequent nods and gestures to proceedings. I've read that she was one of the highlights of La Clique at last year's Festival so she came back this year with her own show in a much smaller venue literally in the shadow of the more glamourous Spiegeltent. So while she was performing her show, the audience could hear all the noise and whooping from the show she used to be in 50 yards away. To say it was distracting is a bit of an understatement. At times it was hard to hear what was going on in fornt of us with all the noise from next door. Still, as she told us, she's not bitter.. Better to be a big fish in a small pond and all that.

But here's the problem with small theatre spaces. When you're seeing someone performing a show at such close quarters, it's hard not to cringe for them. It's the same feeling people sometimes get at the theatre. You're reminded of the ludicrousness of what you're watching. Sure - at the big shows like La Clique, the crowd are pumped up and ready to applaud pretty much anything but in a smaller venue, the audience is a lot more reserved and the performer has to work extra hard to get a reaction. I'm not complaining about the audience - after all I was in it so I'm as much to blame as anyone else, but it seems the closer you are to the act the more distant you become. And that must be dispiriting for someone trying to sing and tell jokes and generally engage a crowd.

Saying that, there comes a point that you've got to put away your cringe factor and just enjoy the performance for what it is. I mean, the songs weren't great, and the comedy wasn't anything special but she had talent, energy and she showed a lot of determination in front of a pretty quiet bunch of punters.. Sometimes a little charm goes a long way. On the plus side, she has a a fantastic voice, could dance pretty well on skates and was prepared to let us see how unpolished it all was. I like shows where it's not obvious where the laughs are. That's not to say it wasn't funny. It often was but she was confident enough to just let the comedy find us slowly. And sometimes it didn't find us at all which is where all the tension lay. I love to see a performer working in those greyish areas. It's a lot more interesting that watching an established stand-up in Vicar Street where the's no need for the performer to work very hard at all. Tonight, there was a lot of talk about how our imperfections make us perfect and while it'd be easy to dismiss that as the performer's lame attempt to justify a poor show, I'm not sure there isn't something to it. This isn't the Theatre Festival after all - it's the Fringe. If artists can't stage a half-baked musical show wearing rollerskates at the Fringe Festival, where can they do it? And surely it's important that they do it.

By the end, the crowd had, I think, let go of themselves and opened up to what she was trying to do and while we weren't exactly screaming for more, I've got to say that I'd go and see her again if she had a new show.

And yes, she played (or maybe she didn't) America the Beautiful on a kazoo. That's all I'm saying. Look it up on youtube. In a way I wish she hadn't. The act she had just done was so energetic and pleasing that an encore performance really wasn't necessary. Still - well done Amy G and John the bass player. They'll probably be off now to another festival and another small room full of people confused and bewildered by what they're doing..

What a strange life it must be..