A Camille O’Sullivan show is something to behold, not just her exquisite selection of songs, but the drama and humour she brings to each show. Her return to London’s 160-seat Soho Theatre is a reminder of why she remains one of the most compelling performers on the cabaret and art-song circuit. Her latest show is not merely a concert but an immersion— at times it feels like a Catholic confessional at other times a trippy Lynchian trip through her mind. But then she returns for another love letter through song, and the room hushes as the audience dwells on every lyric of her carefully selected set.
Accompanied by her faithful pianist Feargal Murray, O’Sullivan has kitted out the stage with illuminated bunnies, a hula-hoop, some giant cat masks and other oddities that somehow all become part of the 90-minute show. Is she desperately shy or cunningly confident? It is hard to tell, but when she sings, the room is enraptured.
O’Sullivan has always excelled at re-interpreting the darker corners of the artists that have meant so much to her. Her renditions of songs by Nick Cave, Radiohead, Tom Waits, David Bowie, and Jacques Brel unfurl like narratives rather than covers—she doesn’t so much sing a song as inhabit each one. The show opens with ‘Summer in Siam’ by the Pogues and Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’ before two further McGowan-penned songs. Each is performed stripped back with minimal piano, allowing the focus to sit on the lyrics and the stories each tells. Much of the show is given to songs by Shane McGowan and Sinead O’Connor, two artists O’Sullivan personally knew and who have clearly inspired and touched her deeply. Tonight’s show is full not only of their immensely poetic lyrics but snippets of how these artists touched O’Sullivan, including a stunning version of the McGowan/O’Connor duet ‘Haunted’ which O’Sullivan performed at McGowan’s funeral.
Throughout the evening she prowls the stage, voice burning with a theatrical ferocity; before she folds herself into a quiet stillness whilst a hushed reverie spreads throughout the auditorium. Few performers manage such drastic tonal shifts without losing coherence, but O’Sullivan manages it time and time again. On an acapella version of Brel’s ‘Port of Amsterdam’ she almost spits out the references to the drunken sailors with their whores. Later, she performs her tribute to Bowie, blending ‘Where Are We Now?’ into ‘Quicksand’, thus bookending both ends of Bowie’s illustrious career in four short minutes.
One of the aspects of an O’Sullivan show is her relationship with the audience. Her humour—self-mocking, Irishly wry—softens the darkness of the material, grounding the performance in humanity and frailness. Her sense of humour comes to the fore in her version of Kirsty MacColl’s ‘In These Shoes’ during which she is forced to abandon the, quite literally, falling apart stage boots that have become part of her show,
As the set comes to a close, she performs a haunting and elongated version of Nick Cave’s ‘Ship Song’, encouraging the audience to join in, helping make it feel like the most beautiful hymn you’ve never sung in church. By the time the final encore fades, the audience is suspended somewhere between exhilaration and vulnerability—a testament to O’Sullivan’s ability to be a poet, a singer and an entertaining force of nature all at once. At Soho Theatre, she once again proves herself a performer of rare and ferocious talent.
(Photo by Vitor Duarte)
