Camille O'Sullivan

Around ten years ago, mainly to get out of the rain, I stumbled into the Acoustic tent at Glastonbury just after midday.  The place was packed, so early I assumed that it must have been down to the weather, until I was confronted by the Irish chanteuse wowing the crowd, covering everyone from Kirsty MacColl to Johnny Cash. I’ve been a fan boy of Camille O’Sullivan ever since, and have seen her as far afield as the Edinburgh Fringe – where every year she sells out every night of her three week run – so it was a real treat to see her on home turf. It’s a delight that appears to be reciprocated.  O’Sullivan seems to genuinely love the Playhouse and the city, chatting away, as she does, about the Cathedral, Elm Hill, a cup of coffee at the Briton Arms, and watching the swans on the Waveney go by her dressing room window.  It’s the sort of disarming natter that we’ve come to expect from her, frequently sharing intimate moments with the front row off mic while the rest of us strain our ears and wonder what they are on about.

I am ahead of myself, however, as the performance started without any introduction beyond snatches of recorded, discordant voices as the audience took to their seats.  Reaching a crescendo with a clip of HAL from 2001, of all things, O’Sullivan launched into her take on Radiohead’s No Surprises, followed by PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake, without otherwise saying a word.  It was the typically eclectic start we have come to expect, and to that extent was a tad misleading - for what followed was a more sombre and reflective selection of tunes than her regulars might have expected. What remained, and in abundance, was her stagecraft and infectious good humour.  When not chatting to a plastic dinosaur or doing cat impressions, she was showing off her sparkly cat suit and cloak, undercutting any thoughts of pretension by explaining she had sewed it herself, promising details of the pattern (Simplicity, apparently) to anyone who wanted it.

This is a show she first showcased back in 2017, in response to the death of her beloved Bowie and Cohen, the latter having always featured heavily in her sets.  We still got to hear her stunning interpretations of Nick Cave, with both God in his Home and Darker with The Day, but the usual mix of light and shade was noticeably absent.  Instead we were served up a fairly unremitting selection from the gloomier end of the spectrum, mixed in with unsettling spoken word clips, most notably Peter Finch’s prescient rant from Network, but also a really weird interlude featuring a laptop and Trump.  For the most part Camille was backed by a stripped down three piece of drums, keyboards and guitar and while I rather missed the fuller sound of a bigger band, the  solo piano accomplishment of Declan O'Rourke’s  Galileo worked beautifully, while her a capella version of Jacques Brel Braque’s Marieke was a real highlight. The focus was, however, never far away from the question of where are they now – a Bowie song title quoted but not sung, though we did get to hear a poignant and haunting version of his Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide. Otherwise, the evening was all about Leonard Cohen.  I have always found Cohen to be a little wearisome (sacrilege, I know, but he’s hardly a barrel of laughs) though hearing his music reframed by O’Sullivan was a revelation. The poetry of Chelsea Hotel and The Future came through her interpretation with not just emotion, but clarity, bringing freshness to his music I simply wasn’t prepared for.