Camille O’ Sullivan
The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
7th September 2024
Flamboyant Irish chanteuse, Queen of the Edinburgh Fringe and actress Camille O’Sullivan offers love letters to dead friends and her heroes by totally reinventing some of their greatest hits.
When Camille O’Sullivan floated onto the stage in her glittery cape you were instantly reminded that as well as being an intelligent and fearless re-inventor of classic songs she is also an accomplished actor back home in Ireland.
O’Sullivan brought that actorly ability to get behind familiar words to a tour billed as Love Letters to her late friends like Shane MacGowan and Sinead O’Connor, as well as some of her musical heroes like Bowie and Tom Waits. She loved to chat as she offered detailed explanations of why she chose the songs and chatted about all sorts of random topics, which the audience loved because she had no filter.
Doing a set of covers of some very familiar songs had its risks as music fans are naturally protective of songs they love, and what if they were just crap? Luckily O’Sullivan is a devilishly clever reinventor of songs, who then uses her big bluesy voice to great effect, backed by her long-time collaborator Fergal Murray on keyboards.
Surrounded by spooky mannequins with cat and dog heads she said were bought during the lockdown, O’Sullivan took on Radiohead’s Street Spirit (Fade Out) setting out her template of stripping down songs to their basic DNA, before offering something different to the source material you think you know. Sets like this rely on context as to why the songs have been chosen so O’Sullivan talked movingly about her mate Shane MacGowan, and how being part of the Irish diaspora had given him a unique take on living between two cultures. That made her version of McGowan’s Haunted extra poignant, and when the audience almost with thinking joined in, it became an incredibly powerful act of collective remembrance of a flawed but gifted man.
O’Sullivan had real guts as a performer exclaiming “god bless us all and give us luck” as she tackled Jacques Brel’s Amsterdam (famously covered by Bowie) unaccompanied that she turned into a dark hymn. O’Sullivan usually tours with a band so used a backing track as she wandered through the audience during Nick Cave’s Jubilee Street. In a first for this club, O’Sullivan produced a hula hoop for a spot of impromptu experience and proved surprisingly good at it. The first set ended with O’Sullivan unveiling a glitterball for an upbeat take on the late Kirsty MacColl’s naughty In These Shoes?
After a well-earned break, O’Sullivan showed her gift for reinterpretation as she turned Josh Groban’s twee ballad Galileo (Someone Like You) into a torch song, embellishing it like all the songs with grand gestures as she used her body to add even more emotion.
O’Sullivan then offered a discourse on Sinead O’Connor’s artistic bravery and complicated relationship with her mother before singing a raw rendition of My Darling Child, which morphed quite naturally into Fascinating Aida’s Look Mummy, No Hands as her mediation on motherhood. At the end, O’Sullivan was overcome with emotion, but you suspected she wasn’t the only one.
Bowie made a re-appearance as she sang a fabulous version of Quicksand, from Hunky Dory, as a tribute to all those influenced in different ways by the Thin White Duke. The fallen greats were a constant motif in this show, and O’Sullivan recited an intense extract from Joyce’s short story The Dead, before really getting behind the words to A Rainy Night in Soho. Nick Cave sang at MacGowan’s funeral, so it seemed right to finish with his spiritual anthem, The Ship Song, which again sparked a spontaneous singalong, and became even more special as O’Sullivan added a short coda of Fairytale of New York that earned her a standing ovation.
O’Sullivan’s scattergun introductions almost disguised the fact that this was a carefully thought-out show, so she ended with two very different lullabies to send us on our way. The first was a delicate version of The Pogues’ Lullaby of London about their frontman’s love affair with his adopted home city, and in a remarkable feat of musical alchemy, she made MOR king Billy Joel’s Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) into something magical.
Great songs do lend themselves to be covered, but everyone has a terrible cover version of a beloved tune that just makes them shudder. In the hands of a sensitive artist like Camille O’Sullivan they retain their essence, yet at the same time offer a different way of understanding the intention of McGowan, Bowie, O’Conner, Cave et al when they wrote those songs. That’s a rare talent, appreciated by her hardcore fans who flocked to the merch stand for a catch up and a big hug from the gregarious Camille.
Please note: Use of these images in any form without permission is illegal. If you wish to contact the photographer please email: mel@mudkissphotography.co.uk
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Camille can be found at her Website | Facebook and Instagram
Catch Camille while you can:
11 Sept Winchester Theatre Royal
12 Sept Bath Komedia
17 Oct Roisin Dubh Galway
18 Oct Everyman Theatre Cork
22 Nov 3 Olympia Theatre Dublin
Words by Paul Clarke, you can see his author profile here
All photos by Melanie Smith – Louder Than War | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Portfolio
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