Julie Burchill Is Away

Julie Burchill is not away really. The formerly hip NME gunslinger turned “sold-out” broadsheet columnist has come up from her self-imposed exile in Brighton and is letting rip in true hack style at London’s Soho Theatre in Tim Fountain‘s slight but still provocative play.

As a solo vehicle for comedienne Jackie Clune (pictured), the onstage Burchill is a good deal thinner and less aurally grating than her real-life counterpart. In fact, she’s more palatable altogether. Both Fountain and Clune are self-confessed fans of the Queen of Spleen, and their admiration is evident in this portrayal, with the worst of Burchill’s bitchy excesses watered down to seem ‘truthful’ and eccentric rather than just plain cruel. (That said, plenty still come in for trademark pastings, not least Camille Paglia, John Lennon and Burchill’s ex-husband and fellow journo Tony Parsons, with whom she maintains a long-running feud.)

Even being aware of such whitewashing, it’s hard not to share in their enthusiasm to some degree. Burchill is undeniably clever and gloriously opinionated (in a refreshing, un-PC way), with a real talent for writing lines that linger. While some of those lines ring familiar from years and acres of Burchill newsprint (from which Fountain liberally, and with permission, lifted), you don’t appreciate them any less for the repetition, though occasionally their usage can sound too unnatural and polished for the casual conversation Clune is meant to be having with the audience.

Those in the stalls act literally as the audience that Burchill has always courted in her relentless quest for fame. We’re party to her introspections as she prepares for a lunchtime interview, followed by her scrambling to miss a column deadline. Aside from some computer mishaps, nothing happens; the set-up is simply an opportunity for a Burchillianly scattergun character study.

And one with no little smattering of irony. We’re asked to empathise with a woman who admits that she herself – “can’t do empathy – why should I feel for other people – they might as well just be tables or chairs”. It’s a credit to Clune’s performance that we do care. Her sly glances and wisecracks are touchingly subverted by moments of silence and the throwaway delivery of thoughts on the comfort of suicide as an option and a self-image of one who’s “forever leaving”.

None of this is accidental in Jonathan Lloyd‘s production, in which even the smallest of props – a row of Kewpie dolls, a Mardi Gras mask on the mantel, a porcelain leopard – from Julian McGowan‘s splashy pink sitting room set is woven into the fabric of the narrative. Like Burchill herself, it may at first seem like a chaotic mess of kitsch and contradictions, but it’s highly calculated and quite compelling too.

– Terri Paddock