YOUR GUIDE TO EDINBURGH'S FESTIVALS
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
ED2011 4/5 Reviews ED2011 Theatre Reviews
Liberace: Live From Heaven (Norwell Lapley Productions Ltd)
By James Hampson | Published on Friday 12 August 2011
I walked through the wind and rain to see a tribute act to Liberace in a two thirds empty lecture theatre. Stephen Fry’s voiceover as St Peter booms out, judging whether Liberace should enter heaven. The whole thing feels like a panto for grown-ups; one woman bursts into tears. Everything here is cheap: the jokes, the set, the music. But there’s no reason to sneer over such things. The hour includes on-stage banter, catty gossip, smile-inducing sing-a-longs and at the end, a sublime simultaneous defence of both homosexuality and staying in the closet. This is a valiant defence of the gaudy and uncool, against the mocking over-dogs of taste and aesthetic decorum. It’s also just great fun.
Assembly George Square, 3 – 28 Aug, 6.25pm (7.55pm), £12.00 – £14.00, fpp274.
tw rating 4/5
[jh]
