Laura Moody
Brighton Spiegeltent
May 9
There are times when it’s a real privilege to be a reviewer; to have access to anything you want to see and have to pass an option on it. It also becomes a bit numbing after a while and you go to show after show, become blasé and slightly detached in a been there, seen that kind of arty farty way, and then, and then there are those shows which grab you from the off, shake off the dust of habit and routine and kick you right up the lazy fat butt with a huge amount of talent and vibrant sassiness. Last night I got a belter of kick from Laura Moody and her cello.
Her vocal range put me in mind of Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Diamanda de Galas, soft, howling, beguiling, punishing, brutal and so so tender that you cry and last night Moody’s playing and singing brought the tears to my eyes and I felt my dry dusty soul irrigate.
When I’m moved by a performer, I always throw away the usual rules of reviewing as it seems pointless to review such a visceral, emotive, capable and astonishing talent with such small things as deconstructive opinion and experience. Moody is something new, something very old too, that wonderful innovative style which puts you in mind of other astonishingly female performers but only because of the way they touch you, deep deep inside. Moody is an avant-Garde singer songwriter and Elysian Quartet cellist, her fresh and innovative approach to both her singing and the cello allows some thrilling sounds and ideas to come flowing out of her.
Do I gush? Yes I gush; the lady made me cry, with her wild, crazy, anguished bowing and perfect, manic, ethereal version of The Ballard of Lucy Jorden melodised with her own composition about loving inappropriate older men. Her music shouldn’t work, but how it does, god how it does. Contradictory, clashing, cacophonies are all tied together with huge leaps of artistic faith, bridging gaps with harmonic reaches and plunging into the abyss with the rhythmic, percussive use of her Cello. She’s utterly nuts, and yet centred with a fearful modest simplicity. Go see her and be changed.
Last night in the Brighton Spiegeltent we were transfixed by her, like rabbits in the headlights of her oncoming talent she ploughed into us, eviscerated us before gently, tenderly and with grace putting us all back together again, stitching sinew, tears and bone back together again with her relentless enchanted bow and letting us out into the night, touched, changed and full of wonder.
Superb, astonishing and utterly recommended, this the Brighton Fringe at it’s very best.
Full details of the performance here
See and read more about this extraordinary performer here at her website
