Adrienne is the perfect host. The epitome of good hospitality, she is welcoming, entertaining and breathtakingly honest. Primarily, the honesty is applied to herself. But you may well also discover one or two truths of your own.
As the show begins, we are welcomed into the living room of Adrienne. Situated in the University of Edinburghs Medical School, it is constructed within a disused seminar room. This setting provides intriguing dualities between performance and conversation, reality and fiction. Ultimately, though, we are left with little doubt that the stories Adrienne tells and those of our fellow audience members are true. And they are all the more profoundly felt for being so.
The motto of An Audience With Adrienne is, Its all allowed, which becomes a mantra, repeated numerous times by our genial host. By this, we understand that nothing is off-limits. We can listen. We can leave. We can put our feet up on the sofa. We can pop out for a piss. We can ask questions. We can answer questions. We can keep quiet. We can be as involved as we want to be.
In the most immediate sense, the show is about Adrienne. We select stories about her life from a menu, which she tells with honesty, passion and flair. Some are funny. Some are sad. All are totally engaging. A personal favourite would have to be Camp Beds, Lies and Holy Water, which captures so vividly that first sexual encounter the excitement, the fear, the anticipation. This story particularly resonates with a gay audience, describing the once apparently forbidden attraction we all had for the handsome, jock stud of the class. It manages to be astoundingly sexy, tense and tender all at once. Such virtuosity is the mark of a master raconteur.
But this show is also about us. We are, throughout, on first name terms with Adrienne. After a quietly moving and very funny film featuring her parents discussing their attitudes towards Adrian(Adrienne)s tranvestitism, she sets up an absolutely non-intrusive party game where, in teams, we are challenged to build sandcastles. The best castle wins a prize (and I am proud to say said castle belonged to my team). This introduction leads nicely into later participatory segments of the show, where we are asked fairly personal questions. The wonderful surprise is that Adriennes constant, warm reassurance enables a number of audience members to respond candidly with remarkable confidence. Its all allowed, after all.
In Adrienne, Adrian Howells has created a gem of a persona. But, then, is it really a persona? To answer this, you must go along to the Traverse 5 and find out for yourself.
The profoundly moving final moments we shared together will remain in my mind for many days to come.
