EVE: ALL ABOUT HER at the Soho Theatre

★★★★★

“It is a highly skilled and immaculate piece of theatre cabaret. Complicated and captivating”

One man, one microphone, one hour. Keith Ramsay, actor and cabaret artist ambles into a hazy spotlight; assured, but with eyes like a threatened panther. Dressed for the Rat Pack but coifed for a 1980s Goth revival. One man, in one hour, playing a host of men – and women. An Edinburgh hit last summer, and a recipient of The Stage Edinburgh Award, Ramsay is now beguiling London audiences with his spellbinding monologue “Eve: All About Her”.

So, what about Eve? Indeed – what is it all about? It’s a question that you bring to the venue, and leave with too. Obviously, the starting point is Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1950s classic movie starring Bette Davis and Anne Baxter – as the eponymous Eve Carrington. But within minutes we lose track of the many tangents Ramsay veers off on as he throws it into the pot and sees where the ripples take him. It is a far from linear route as the audience are thrown from side to side on the switchback ride that Ramsay’s frenzied performance takes us. The thrill is in no way dampened by the knowledge that he is, against all evidence, firmly in control of his material. It is a highly skilled and immaculate piece of theatre cabaret. Complicated and captivating. A checklist of Hollywood’s finest; the Grande Dames and the divas, delivered with a white-knuckle energy.

It is devilishly difficult to keep up with. Quotations bounce off the footlights, clashing with new ones that are already forming and falling from his lips. Written by Ramsay too, the prose is anarchic and literate. Shades of Hunter S. Thompson flicker with Kurt Vonnegut, Budd Schulberg and even Raymond Chandler, blurring together, flickering like an old movie projector while the vibrant language splashes its hues over the narrative like a coked-up Pollock. Backstories mingle with poetic licence as some sort of wide-eyed young man’s road trip winds up in Eve Harrington’s fertile imagination.

“Movement, mimicry, pastiche and sheer originality are part of Ramsay’s make-up”

It’s a whirlwind tour. A tornado of a performance with seemingly no eye to the storm – no calm centre. Caught in this maelstrom of mayhem are the likes of Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Liza Minelli, Candy Darling, Vivien Leigh among many many others. There are hops through time with references, some oblique, to the Pet Shop Boys, Amy Winehouse and Kim Carnes (again – among others).

Movement, mimicry, pastiche and sheer originality are part of Ramsay’s make-up. Vocal expressions and impersonations are seen through a house of mirrors, distorted and refracted. You just want to get inside his mind and see what sort of prism is contorting his thought processes.

It changes gear when he breaks into song. We can breathe again, but only for a moment, until his reinterpretations take our breath away again. ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ couldn’t be further removed from Doris Day. Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ segues into Judy Garland’s ‘The Man That Got Away’. Neither Stephen Sondheim nor Liza Minnelli can be seen anywhere near his version of ‘Losing My Mind’. Ramsay’s interpretations are unique, showcasing an extraordinary vocal range.

A compelling show. Deliciously Avant Garde, with the alarm-bell ringing allure of smeared lipstick. Experimental and queer. Deeply intelligent and erudite, but with tongue in cheek. Ramsay’s writing is poetic, so he has earned the poetic licence to do what he wants with it. His performance is thrilling, and rich in humour. “Offstage I hate me” he semi-croons in the guise of Eve Carrington (after all – isn’t this what it is all about?), “but onstage I’m absolutely in love with me”. And so are we.

EVE: ALL ABOUT HER at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 24th August 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Ullathorne

Previously reviewed at this venue:

String V Spitta | ★★★★ | August 2023

Bloody Elle | ★★★★★ | July 2023

Peter Smith’s Diana | ★ | July 2023

Britanick | ★★★★★ | February 2023

Le Gateau Chocolat: A Night at the Musicals | ★★★★ | January 2023

Welcome Home | ★★★★ | January 2023

We Were Promised Honey! | ★★★★ | November 2022

Super High Resolution | ★★★ | November 2022

Hungry | ★★★★★ | July 2022

Oh Mother | ★★★★ | July 2022

Eve: All About Her

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★★★★

“The rivalry, which fires the first half hour, is heated and hilarious”

Let’s start with a question. If you wanted to find yourself in a room full of adults (a loose term), singing the nursery rhyme, “Incy Wincy Spider”, accompanied by a human beatbox on a loop-pedal – where would you go? Okay – even if the question has never entered your mind before, it should now!

Let me put that in context. We are at the sixth birthday party of Anastasia, a Russian oligarch’s daughter (in reality we are in the basement of the Soho Theatre, but I don’t want to spoil the illusion), for which the entertainment is being supplied by a rather odd couple: the highly-strung, silver-spooned Sylvester String (Ed MacArthur) and the TikTok-rapper-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks MC SPITTA (Kiell Smith-Bynoe). Once the reigning king of the lucrative West London children’s party circuit, String’s crown is being usurped by SPITTA, whose grittier, grimier act is gaining favour with the Gen Alpha kids.

The rivalry, which fires the first half hour, is heated and hilarious. How on earth did these two get to work together? Cue prefatory flashback. As the duo duel in song and semi-improvised banter, their diverging paths shift towards each other and they reluctantly agree to collaborate and put on this party together. They pool their respective skills and throw their differing backgrounds into the magician’s hat, pulling out a constant stream of laugh-out-loud absurdity. The show inevitably milks the subject of class and the socio-economic chasm between the two characters, but it is dished out with such relish that after an hour we don’t want this party to end.

The sheer entertainment value screens us to the fact that the plot has been left behind at the school gate. What follows are all the trappings and paraphernalia of a kids’ party, complete with magic, song, audience participation and overall downright silliness. But with an offbeat irreverence that, had the audience actually comprised a bunch of six-year-olds, the duo would be out of work long ago – if not behind bars.

The opening number details their back stories, while subsequent songs and surreal fun and games peel back further layers. We learn how String underhandedly gate-crashed SPITTA’s gigs in disguise to wheedle himself into his schedule. We learn, too, of SPITTA’s dubious means to steal String’s gigs in the first place. The pair are constantly sending themselves up as much as each other. Topical references are thrown in between the obviously more established but outrageous one-liners. It is politically incorrect and also politically acute. But beneath the ramshackle humour, the skill and talent of MacArthur and Smith-Bynoe are clearly visible. And the fun they are having is clearer still. And even clearer still… is the fun the audience are having.

SPITTA started off stealing String’s shows, String tries to steal it back. But in the end, they both end up stealing this show. It’s a party not to be missed.

EVE: ALL ABOUT HER at the Soho Theatre

★★★★★

“It is a highly skilled and immaculate piece of theatre cabaret. Complicated and captivating”

“Movement, mimicry, pastiche and sheer originality are part of Ramsay’s make-up”

EVE: ALL ABOUT HER at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 24th August 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Ullathorne

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Eve: All About Her

Eve: All About Her

STRING V SPITTA at the Soho Theatre

★★★★

“The rivalry, which fires the first half hour, is heated and hilarious”

STRING V SPITTA at the Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 3rd August 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by James Deacon

String v SPITTA is at the Soho Theatre until the 10th August then moves to the Pleasance in Edinburgh from 18th – 26th August

Previously reviewed at this venue:

String V SPITTA

String V SPITTA