Luke Bayer

Edfest Bouquets 2024
Another incredible August in Edinburgh. Another Fringe packed with wonders to behold. As ever, we’ve put together our annual list of virtual bouquets for the shows that blew us away.

Julia VanderVeen : My Grandmother’s Eye Patch – ZOO Playground

“A lot of the comedy comes simply from VanderVeen’s exaggerated facial expressions and her tendency to skewer audience members with a scarily intense stare…”

Luke Bayer – Diva: Live from Hell – Underbelly (Belly Button), Cowgate

“Channing (the name is obviously a reference to Bette Davis in All About Eve) is a delightful character, supremely self-obsessed, deliciously callous and intent on achieving stardom at any cost…”

The Sound Inside – Traverse Theatre

“Director Matt Wilkinson handles the various elements of the play with skill, and guides it to a poignant conclusion…”

Summer of Harold – Assembly (Checkpoint)

‘If you’re looking for an hour-and-a-half of impressive theatre, with snort-out-loud humour as well as profound emotional moments, then Summer of Harold ticks all the boxes…”

Rebels and Patriots – Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs)

“Loosely stitched with a sprinkling of history and Shakespeare, it all adds up to something very thoughtful…”

Chris Dugdale: 11 – Assembly George Street (Ballroom)

“There are some examples of mind control that have us shaking our heads in disbelief – and I may be guilty of muttering the odd expletive…”

Natalie Palamides: Weer – Traverse Theatre

“A great big slice of the absurd, expert clowning performed with such reckless abandon that you can’t help loving it…”

V.L. – Roundabout at Summerhall

“A whip-smart comedy that also has some incisive things to say about the difficulties of adolescence and the importance of friendship…”

Sam Ipema: Dear Annie, I Hate You – ZOO Playground

“A wonderfully inventive and cleverly-assembled slice of true experience, by turns funny, profound and – at one particular point – very challenging…”

Michaela Burger: The State of Grace – Assembly George Street (Drawing Room)

“Not so much an impersonation as a transformation. Burger talks eloquently and provocatively about the lives of sex workers, explaining why there is a need for their business to be recognised…”

Honourable Mentions

Werewolf – Summerhall (Former Women’s Locker Room)

“I love it. The wardens do an excellent job of inhabiting their characters at the same time as managing the narrative, expertly drawing what they need from the participants…”

Megan Prescot: Really Good Exposure – Underbelly (Belly Button)

“Prescott is an accomplished performer. She tantalises and reels us in before skewering our internal biases and forcing us to think…”

Diva: Live from Hell

08/08/24

Underbelly Cowgate (Belly Button), Edinburgh

The dank environs of Belly Button somehow make an apt setting for Diva: Live from Hell. If there is a hell, this is surely what the place must look like. It’s here in the Seventh Circle that former high school musical theatre star, Desmond Channing (Luke Bayer), is obliged to re-enact the story of his fall on a nightly basis. Back in the day, Channing was the all-singing, all-dancing star of The Ronald Reagan High School’s drama society. Camp and undeniably talented, he is also the society’s president – something he never lets his co-stars forget.

And then along comes Evan Harris, a new recruit recently transferred from California. Despite his bluff ‘aw shucks’ attitude, everybody seems to like Evan and Desmond dutifully takes him under his wing. Evan soon lands a plump role in the society’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance and, pretty soon, he is making moves on the young actress who Desmond has had his eye on for ages.

Naturally, there’s going to be hell to pay.

Triple-threat Bayer is a tour de force in this supremely entertaining riff on the high school musical genre. There’s just him and three backing musicians (two of whom have to work very hard not to keep laughing out loud at his snarky asides to the audience). Bayer is quite simply astonishing, singing and dancing up a storm, slickly slipping from one character to another with absolute assurance, even delivering a frenetic tap dance routine at one point.

Channing (the name is obviously a reference to Bette Davis in All About Eve) is a delightful character, supremely self-obsessed, deliciously callous and intent on achieving stardom at any cost. The songs by Alexander Sage Oyen are insanely catchy and Nora Brigid Monahan’s script is packed with references to the stars of musical theatre. Given the modest size of the performance space, the presentation is really inventive, a line of metal lockers providing Bayer with costume changes, props and even a mirror in which to check his makeup. A scene involving a death by automobile is simply but ingeniously depicted.

Diva: Live from Hell deserves to be shown on a massive stage with an equally massive production budget, but this is the Fringe, baby and, up in the modest setting of Belly Button, Bayer and his team are creating theatre to die for. Literally.

5 stars

Philip Caveney