After a sold out London run the reviews are in and they are smashing!
"Dipping in and out of different tunes, mocking racism, sexism, talent-free talent shows and also – always – herself, this isn’t just camp or ironic: this is something almost holy..."
From The Times
October 24, 2007
Sandra Bernhard
Dominic Maxwell at Huddersfield Town Hall
4 STARS
“This is all like a dream,” coos Sandra Bernhard, gazing around a half-empty Victorian town hall, “coming to Huddersfield.” But if the irony of her lo-glam surroundings isn’t lost on Miss Bernhard – irony is rarely lost on Miss Bernhard – she still performs as if she were at Carnegie Hall.
Having seen this American comedy diva only in clips and on talk shows, I’d somehow supposed that she was not the full deal: a half-decent singer, a half-decent comic, relentlessly overselling herself. Reader, I was a schmuck. Stalking the aisle for her opening number, she takes the room by force. “You’re going to love me!” she sings, OTT yet controlled. And she's right.
Live comedy is about the power of personality. It’s how Ricky Gervais can make a great show from OK material. And it’s how Bernhard can make West Yorkshire feel like Broadway.
Like Gervais, she celebrates and satirises her exalted status. She moans about her flight but manages to mention that she was in a Premier Lounge before she took off. Unlike Gervais, she brings us in on the joke: talking about her famous friends, her “low-to-midrange luxury lifestyle”, she mocks her own – and our own – desire to buy into such dreams.
“You know,” she tells us, “Chrissie Hynde is a very good friend of mine . . . crazy bitch!” Marianne Faithfull? “Mad as a hatter.” Even Madonna – reputedly her ex – appears to get an oblique but cheerful dissing.
Through the showbiz smoke and mirrors, the lace mini-dress and the $600 heels, Bernhard’s anger keeps her honest. She spits at Sex and the City for theme-parking New York; she hates spurious luxury but mourns the death of chic; her contradictions are part of the joke. “I’m going to try this here,” she spits, “because if you guys don’t think it’s funny, then I won’t do it in London.” Wow: insulting and flattering, all in the same breath.
Falling in love with this strikingly youthful 52-year-old means ignoring her flaws. The way that her show peters out into a karaoke rock medley, her four-man band pounding out riffs as she changes into a saucy policegirl costume. The way that she raises inspiring ideas about identity and authenticity but doesn’t always follow them through. The way that, apparently unaware that she was contractually obliged to have an interval, she sends out her unprepared bassist for a woeful warm-up set.
If she joined all the dots, Bernhard would be world-class. She’s already got star presence, and she’s got the ire and the imagination to turn out the odd thing as amazing as her Nina Simone tribute. Dipping in and out of different tunes, mocking racism, sexism, talent-free talent shows and also – always – herself, this isn’t just camp or ironic: this is something almost holy.