Hervé is a professional dancer and singer who grew up in Mali and France with his adopted Belgian parents and brother. His show combines stories and dance from a blend of different cultures and details times spent by Hervé or his father in countries all over the world; it has all the charm of a true and extraordinary life story. However, what he relates to us is better than how he does it.
Hervé claims, at the beginning of the show, that if it weren’t for his accent he would have been a very versatile character actor. Sadly, for whatever reason, his acting wasn’t quite as up to scratch as his other talents. The drift from character to character should appear effortless but Hervé’s interchanges were confusing; if it weren’t for a few individualised, character-specific props it would have been nearly impossible to detect them.
It has also been advertised on posters as a ‘black comedy, in more ways than one’, but this isn’t obvious `in the performance. Apart from the occasional joke about the situations his skin colour has gotten him into and about young sibling rivalry, the focus isn’t really on the laughs and the humour isn’t very dark at all.
What we did see of Hervé’s dancing was very impressive - with the older women in the audience especially appreciating his cheeky winks and flashes of torso between moves. However, for a professional dancer, it seemed a shame that some of his routines were not as adventurous as they could have been. Also, for someone who sang in the French Army Choir it seemed sad that we never heard him sing and just saw him mouth along the lyrics of songs played by tapes.
However, I must stress that this is not your average Fringe show but something much more hybrid and really quite special. At one point, Hervé reflects that ‘to hate the body is to hate life’ and between his dance routines and his stories, it is certainly hard to tell which is the more fascinating. The audience loved his body and loved his life.
