Dark? Definitely. Angel? Well that’s debateable. But one thing’s for sure – Camille O’Sullivan’s neo-burlesque, cabaret-style show is anything but ladylike as she sits with her legs apart, crawls barefoot round the stage in fishnets and hitches up both the top and (even more frequently) the bottom half of her costume.
She also hops, meows and makes an entrance through the stalls trailing her hand across the shoulders of the aisle-side audience. When she addresses us between songs, what she says seems, for the most part, pointless – except, perhaps, to give her the chance to get her breath back.
She really doesn’t need all these extraneous distractions - the dim, smoky set hung with dresses and her five strong band attuned to her changing moods are all that’s necessary to show off the talents of this architect turned singer who know how to take a familiar song and make it her own.
There’s poignancy (Dillie Keane’s Look Mummy, No Hands) disappointed, rasping passion (Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice), foot-stomping anger (Tom Waits’ Misery is the River of the World) and sadness (Jacques Brel’s Marieke) delivered in a husky voice which ranges from the quietly gentle to the defiantly powerful.
I wouldn’t want to watch the show again – though she’s played the Sydney Opera House and the Albert Hall - but I’d happily buy the CD and let her compelling voice and idiosyncratic interpretations speak, unencumbered, for themselves.
Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1D 7EZ, (08444124658) nimaxtheatres.com (£21- £36) until 16th January
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