Ah, the piano bar; a place where you might go to relax with a few friends and a few drinks, with the piano bar lady softly accompanying your conversations. Well, not this piano bar lady. Put down your drink, she is here for you to listen to - and listen you will as she recounts the story of the life at the keys. Through music and speech Linn Lorkin hauls you back to 1980’s New York with the trials and tribulations of a girl born and bred on a New Zealand dairy farm trying to make it big in the Big Apple. From cockroaches to Counts, her story has it all - and the beauty and detail with which she relates her narrative gives you a real sense of what it was like to be a part of such an up-and-coming time. Her personable charm as she spoke gave me that tremendous feeling of being the only one in the room. Indeed, a great quality of this show was the sense that I was safe in the performer’s hands, that I could simply lie back and be taken on a journey. This is a quality which cannot be taken for granted at the Fringe, where I often find myself consciously willing acts to have some confidence in their actions. Lorkin’s exquisite story-telling ability left me completely enraptured in her world. In fact, I found myself relishing these in-between moments more than this Piano Bar Lady’s songs themselves. She is undoubtedly a talented musician, this is clear from the moment her fingertips first caress the ivory keys. A beautiful rendition of Edith Piaf’s ‘La Vie en Rose’ was spine-tinglingly mesmerising and a striking eruption of ‘New York New York’ transported me straight to that ‘helluva town’. Disappointingly, it was her original compositions which impeded this show from a five-star rating. The arrangements are a little repetitive and the lyrics just not quite sharp enough to pull out a good punch-line. Lorkin is extremely likable, and that counts for a lot. Whilst hers isn’t a joke-a-minute piece, this isn’t her intention. Let her take you on a journey through the old streets of New York and you will not regret it.

Reviewer:
Josie Humber

Josie Humber has written 13 reviews for Broadway Baby since joining the team in 2011.