BRIGHTON FESTIVAL REVIEW: Meow Meow: Souvenir

Meow Meow

Souvenir
Brighton Festival

Created by Meow Meow in collaboration with composers Jherek Bischoff and August Von Trapp (great grandson!) , musical direction Jherek Bischoff & design by Andrea Lauer this was billed as a fantastical song cycle on a half-remembered misreported history of Brighton’s Theatre Royal. The misreported part was certainly the most accurate description.

Actress, singer, dancer, Meow Meow is a cabaret diva of the highest order. Her kamikaze performance style has thrilled and inspired audiences and here, at least to start that edge of ‘I can do anything ’ threat which comes with such huge payoffs in her usual performances held delicious promise, it was soon apparent that tonight she was on best behaviour however, doing someone else’s vibe and taking herself just a touch too seriously.

Meow Meow joined forces with the Orchester der Kleinen Regiment to summon the ghosts of Brighton’s Theatre Royaland her set featured original collaborations with composers Jherek Bischoff, August von Trapp, and The Lilliputian Octet all of which sounded just fine, with the moody, ethereal edge which is Meow’s trademark style, but it was a case of the triumph of style over substance.

The songs lamented on, one slight dirge after another with snippets of what might or might not be true stories from back stage, a story of Marlana’s Dietrich obsessively scrubbing the dressing room, a small boy trapped in a flood, the sailors tending the ropes working the flying scenery but none of these were explored in the song for their emotional impact or oddness, just as the entrée to another half-baked lament.  The best song of the evening, lead into by a fragile connection to the widow of Arctic explorer Franklin and the way they held a party on the ice that would kill them was lovely, but nothing really to do with the theatre royal. I think Lady F’s next door neighbour’s hairdresser’s sister’s friend’s driver had once attended a matinée or something equality as shaky…

I am a huge Meow fan, but this evening made me think about collaborations between superb fringe performers who OWN their venue and audience and take them on a journey into performance on trust and that of a Festival show which is deluged by the weight of its own expectations and slowly drowns in front of you and is starved of the proper funding that a huge thematic show like this really needs to succeed.   Who struck the heart out of this show, who thought it would be a good idea to present Meow Meow as some faded reminiscent rambler, good for one song perhaps two; but to stretch that over a night was to ignore this performers great strength, her unpredictable energy and bursts of transformative madness, and the reason folk flock to see her strut her stuff. Not to facilitate her to rise to another astonishing level of daring is a loss of nerve on behalf of the festival and ultimately lead to a one off fancy which was pleasant enough but left nothing tinging long in the mind.

There was much talk of death on the stage, of dying and ironic tongue in cheek stage death, and then the kids were brought on and I switched off.

The audience seemed to be enjoying themselves although in the stalls their behaviour was appalling, the people in front of me vaping with a bright pink LED, getting up and down constantly throughout the performance, the usually merciless ushers of the Theatre Royal were nowhere to be seen.

A disappointing evening, and a missed opportunity and I came away thinking that it all must have seemed like a good idea at the time but something, something important – the Divine Wind in her sails- was lost in the translation.

See full details of the event here on the Festivals website