Shirley Knot The Siren

I worked with talented singer and actor Debbie Bridge for a couple of sessions as director and dramaturge to help her develop her one woman cabaret show. The show was quirky and engaging, very much in the style of Bette Midler. Debbie had created a wonderful character and her singing was fabulous. What the show needed really was honing and focusing - as ever in the creative process, at first there were so many ideas, it could have become three different shows.

With one person shows, character is king (or queen) but I personally also feel we still need to be taken on a journey over the course of the show - whether that show is theatre, review, cabaret or even a concert. The set list a band creates will still take us on an emotional journey over the course of their performance.

We talked a lot about what the journey for this show would be and what had inspired Debbie to create the show in the first place. The show is light-hearted musical theatre, but it also has serious things to say about the perception of middle-aged women, both in the entertainment industry and society as a whole. Taking this as our core anchor point we were able to arrange the material in a way which creating a satisfying and moving tale of one mermaid's life story, woven between some spellbinding singing.

​Debbie will be taking the show on to cabaret festivals around the UK - watch out for it!