Edinburgh review: Bonita & Billie Holiday (Assembly Roxy)
American actress Bonita Brisker portrays Billie Holiday in this tribute to the brilliant singer and her short life. Brisker performs the singer's tunes as if at a gig, while filling us in on biographical details of the singer's life, talking as if she were Holiday, in the gaps between. It could be great, but for the fact that the script is clunky and Brisker just doesn't embody the singer – in either voice or soul – all that well.
The heavy, lush tones of Lady Day struggle to find their way out of Brisker. It's not that she can't sing, it's that she struggles to sing these songs. Her voice just doesn't seem suited to all the heartache and pain that Holiday managed to convey in the likes of "You've Changed" and "Strange Fruit". As such, it's nice listening to the melodies, but you yearn for something more.
It's Billie's first gig after her stint in prison and the FBI are in the audience, following her every move. Details about her life are delivered easily to us in the form of little nuggets by Brisker's Holiday. But they ultimately feel strong-armed into the script and the drama in the piece is flat. Even when the singer almost turns back on to dope – needle poised over a bare arm in her dressing room – you don't feel it.
Images of Holiday – of her life and death – are projected onto a screen above the stage. They give some context to a few of the songs: during "Strange Fruit" we see terrible pictures of lynchings in southern America. But several of the photographs are such low resolution, they blur on a screen that big.
Brisker is charming, there's no doubt about that. She's softly spoken and treats the audience like her closest friends. But she never quite manages to convince us we're watching a legend.
Bonita & Billie Holiday runs at the Assembly Roxy at 9.50pm until 28 August.
