Review by Steve Bennett

Jade The Folk Singer ertainly scores high on audience control. After five minutes, she unwisely mentioned something was "unfunny" and a disgruntled Glaswegian growled loudly: "Funnier than you are!" Staying in innocent character, Jade shot back: "I'm not meant to be funny. I'm a folk singer. I'll make you my friend by the end of the night and you'll lick my hair."

By this time, all Jade had done was sing one song, then literally dragged on her 'best friend' Brenda ­ an unconscious, blood-splattered woman in crash helmet and cycling gear whom she had apparently hit while driving to the gig. Brenda began to twitch, got covered by a carpet, eventually regained consciousness and later sat in the audience and began mildly heckling.

Love her or hate her - and the audience was divided - Jade certainly tries, with patter, songs, a sort-of plot, even sweets given out to the audience.

The trouble is that the severely dysfunctional and rather deranged Jade is not a fully-rounded character. And the incongruity of an innocent folk singer using four-letter words no longer works as a concept; nor does Jade 'deciding' rather than 'discovering' she is a lesbian.

The trouble is that this idea should be a five-minute sketch or a running gag on a TV show, rather than a 60-minute stage show. It wears very thin, very quickly - although there was one bizarre out-of-character leap into another more sophisticated genre altogether when Jade sang a song entitled Dulcie Eats Decorum And Is A Pro-Patronising Moron.

I laughed. But, like the show itself, it doesn't quite work on closer inspection, and Jade couldn't sustain the idea for very long.

Reviewed by: John Fleming

Review date: 1 Aug 2004
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett