Fringe 2024 Christine Bovill No Regrets Pleasance EICC 31st July Review
Christine Bovill No Regrets is at Pleasance at EICC until 10 August, and if you are a fan of Edith Piaf songs then this is probably a show not to miss.
This show is really an update of Christine’s “Piaf” show which firmly established her reputation as one of the finest contemporary interpreters of “chansons françaises”. It is also the story of Edith Piaf’s life and how her voice and music from the past touched the heart of a young schoolgirl from Glasgow, who hated French lessons at school, and changed her life forever, becoming both a French teacher and eventually an internationally known singer of French songs. A story like this one could itself so easily have been a song for Edith Piaf herself.
Anyone who has been to one of Christine Bovill’s performances knows that she makes no attempt to sound like Piaf, or any of the original singers of the songs that she sings, but it is her ability to inhabit the world of these songs and bring the people in them to life which makes her such a unique vocalist and performer on stage. In Christine’s hands, these are songs of everyday people sung from the heart and that is where all of these songs truly live, why they never age, they live in people’s hearts, they express their fears, their emotions, and their love of life.
Creating a new one hour show of Piaf songs is always going to be a problem and I have no idea how Christine chose what songs finally made it into this “No Regrets” one. There are always two problems here – so many great Edith Piaf songs to choose from and so many iconic songs that any audience expects to be included in any show about Piaf.
This was the first night of this show and I don’t want to give too much away about the set list. Yes, the expected “L’Hymne a L’Amour”, “La Vie En Rose” and her greatest ever hit, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” are here, but there are some real song surprises here too.
“No Regrets” has it all, songs about real people from all walks of life, young lovers, older lovers, their hopes, their dreams, their happiness and their sorrows.
Don’t worry if you feel that your French is not up to understanding all of these songs as Christine sings many in French and English, and even if only sung in French, her descriptions of the people in the songs that you are about to hear and her unique, expressive interpretations of them leave the listener in no doubt as to what everything is about.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This show is really an update of Christine’s “Piaf” show which firmly established her reputation as one of the finest contemporary interpreters of “chansons françaises”. It is also the story of Edith Piaf’s life and how her voice and music from the past touched the heart of a young schoolgirl from Glasgow, who hated French lessons at school, and changed her life forever, becoming both a French teacher and eventually an internationally known singer of French songs. A story like this one could itself so easily have been a song for Edith Piaf herself.
Anyone who has been to one of Christine Bovill’s performances knows that she makes no attempt to sound like Piaf, or any of the original singers of the songs that she sings, but it is her ability to inhabit the world of these songs and bring the people in them to life which makes her such a unique vocalist and performer on stage. In Christine’s hands, these are songs of everyday people sung from the heart and that is where all of these songs truly live, why they never age, they live in people’s hearts, they express their fears, their emotions, and their love of life.
Creating a new one hour show of Piaf songs is always going to be a problem and I have no idea how Christine chose what songs finally made it into this “No Regrets” one. There are always two problems here – so many great Edith Piaf songs to choose from and so many iconic songs that any audience expects to be included in any show about Piaf.
This was the first night of this show and I don’t want to give too much away about the set list. Yes, the expected “L’Hymne a L’Amour”, “La Vie En Rose” and her greatest ever hit, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” are here, but there are some real song surprises here too.
“No Regrets” has it all, songs about real people from all walks of life, young lovers, older lovers, their hopes, their dreams, their happiness and their sorrows.
Don’t worry if you feel that your French is not up to understanding all of these songs as Christine sings many in French and English, and even if only sung in French, her descriptions of the people in the songs that you are about to hear and her unique, expressive interpretations of them leave the listener in no doubt as to what everything is about.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com