Review by Steve Bennett

So London, with her kinda people, must be where she performs all-guns-blazing, right? Well, no. She puts on a good show – what sort of diva-goddess would she be if she didn’t? – but the comedy elements are mostly flabby and underwritten, relying on Bernhard’s sheer force of personality alone.

There are a lot lesser things on which to hang a show, mind. Bernhard’s a force of nature, oozing brash chutzpah, stunning elegance and a narcissistic confidence it’s hard to argue with. She makes a stunning entrance, sashaying through the audience in attention-demanding black mini-dress and vertiginous $600 Manolo Blanhniks, seductively and self-assuredly crooning: ‘You’re going to love me.’ You’ve got to admit, she makes a convincing case.

The fiery attitude continues when she reaches the stage, which she distractedly prowls like a caged panther. You know she has the power to rip anything apart, but she’s biding her time, waiting for the moment to pounce.

Unfortunately, the wait is a long one, as mostly keeps her comedy claws to herself, the savagery kept under control.

Instead, she quietly grumbles and loudly name-drops, from star friends such as Chrissie Hynde, Marianne Faithfull and Patti Smith to more designer names that you’ll find in the end credits of Sex And The City. She mocks this shallow, wasteful, ostentatious luxury while simultaneously, oxymoronically, promoting it.

There’s the occasional, glorious, sparkling aside – but for the most part this is flimsy banter, and even her passionate spirit seemed to slowlydesert her. It’s often said of performers with Bernhard’s usually electrifying presence that they could read the phone book and be entertaining – well, she tests that premise to destruction by literally reading from a brochure for luxury condos, hoping, in vain, that a sneer is enough to draw out the laughs.

She’s better when she’s not merely observing, but creating from that unstoppable force within her – and that happens too infrequently here. The energy is turned up in a couple of segments. And while rants about George Bush and tragic celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears may not be mining new ground, the delivery of these more impressive routine seemed laced with venom, bundled in attitude and finished with a barbed-wire bow. But they were only glimpses of what might have been, rather than the meat of the show.

A barnstorming medley of distinctive rock and roll covers such as Welcome To The Jungle and Whole Lotta Love, delivered with genuine pizzazz and a dollop of tongue-in-cheek pantomime, somehow managed to draw a patchy show to a half-decent conclusion - but it was touch-and-go for far too long

London – nor, I suspect, Huddersfield, Worthing or Croydon – never got to witness Bernhard at her untamed best. Let’s hope she comes back soon to show us what she’s really got.

Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
London, October 2007

Review date: 1 Jan 2007
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett