Dawn is well known for a variety of popular comedy shows on TV, in particular The Vicar of Dibley and her work with Jennifer Saunders, so the expectation for her one woman show at the Royal Concert Hall last week may have been that this would be your traditional stand up tour. However it was so much more than this, which is not to say there weren’t plenty of laughs because there was, plenty!
The laughs began with the pre-show announcements, including “total tossers can leave”, “may contain nuts” and “sit back, shut up and be prepared to have the living shit talked out of you”. That is exactly what happened, Dawn told her life story encompassing the funny, the sad, and the ugly. Utilising an on stage massive digital back drop that had an almost 3D effect the audience followed the journey of Dawn’s 30 million minutes or 57 years from her childhood to her successful career right through to the trials and tribulations of her personal life.
It was an intimate one woman performance answering such questions as “How do you be a person?” “How do you be a mother?” and “How do you be a wife?” the audience were absorbed from the moment she started, she moved them to tears when speaking of the death of her father and got a lot of laughs with dances and hilarious photos of her, her family and friends over the years. The crowd was the perfect audience, with the majority being female and around her age, so they could easily relate to the topics she discussed, despite her fame she appears to have gone through the same concerns and joys as anyone else. The show was a massive success; with everyone leaving feeling like that they now knew Dawn.
Shows like this demonstrate the variety of performances that the Royal Concert Hall put on, it’s not all music, plays and dance! Check out www.trch.co.uk for more upcoming unmissable shows.
Josie Opal
