Cutting Off Kate Bush

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It might have disappointed Lucy Benson-Brown that her new one-woman show Cutting Off Kate Bush didn’t sell out in 15 minutes, as the titular star did in real life in March of this year. The show arrives at an opportune moment however, as interest in the gorgeously ghostly music of Bush has been revived with details of her first tour in 35 years. But rather than simply saluting the legacy of the English songwriter, Benson-Brown and director Sam Curtis Lindsay have channelled Bush into an oddly glamorous Bildungsroman about repression and loneliness.

Benson-Brown plays Cathy, a fraught 27-year-old scrambling through a mid-mid-life crisis. Adjusting to her father’s “new” girlfriend, she rummages through old boxes under the stairs while house-sitting for them. Within, she discovers her mother’s old Kate Bush records and finds these ethereal tracks to possess a great nostalgic power. As Cathy slips deeper into solitude, she resurrects the singing and dancing talents that were stifled during her childhood and starts to post videos of herself online, building a huge digital fanbase.

The innate theatricality of Bush’s music is what prompted Benson-Brown to design a show from it. This route into discussing our attitudes to social media, the Internet and the value of relationships is certainly inventive, controlled, even cunning—and Benson-Brown is a beautifully lyrical storyteller—but the drama doesn’t truly gel with the music. Instead, it often feels like a showcase of Benson-Brown’s talents. She doesn’t fully explore the complex notions of family that are brought up, leaving us wholly entertained but ultimately unfulfilled.