Review by Steve Bennett

When it comes to gimmicks, you can’t really beat a harp. After working in theatre, circus and cabaret, Ursula Burns has decided to ply her talent on a comedy stage. It is, she says, a change from a diary filled with weddings and funerals that otherwise would be her lot.

Trouble is, she hasn’t quite worked out a consistent act. There are a couple of very funny moments in this show – not least her party piece finale in which she gets intimate with her instrument to the strains of her Snow Patrol cover – but over an hour it’s hit and miss.

She hasn’t quite decided on a consistent comic voice – although she has worked out what she definitely doesn’t want to do: rock covers, since they always ‘end up sounding pretty’

Burns also admits, hopefully tongue-in-cheek, that she doesn’t especially enjoy her work, or seek to do anything artistic with it, with the song I Do It For Money. It’s surely sarcastic on some level, but you can’t help but feel a little cheated at the sentiment.

The Ulsterwoman – born in the Falls Road at the height of the Troubles – adopts a more obvious ironic tone when she makes reference to her ‘supreme harping’, but this time the boasting in justified, for as a musician she is a delight.

The strongest comedy number, In-Vision Of Privacy, shows what she is capable of, merging that obvious talent with witty lyrics and a strong comment about the rise of surveillance culture. A similarly opinionated rant on the risks of fracking, however, forgets the funny, and just polemic; while she stretches another single comic observation, admittedly a nice one, over a couple minutes by setting it to music.

Elsewhere she abandons the laughs altogether by accompanying an audience member reading a WB Yeats poem; which she then turns around with revised words, again with a political slant – this time on increasing building sprawl.

Yet another tone is struck with the autobiographical title song Get Divorced And Join The Circus, which suggests a possible narrative for a future show, as she once belong to a travelling company that went from Aberdeen to Brighton on horse-drawn wagons; surely a fascinating story that would sustain more.

Dressed in elegant carnival chic, Burns is a compelling presence, her expressive eyes flashing from cheeky mischief to borderline psychotic. You never quite know where you stand with her, both in terms of her emotion and the tone of the show. But the peaks are a delight.

Review date: 12 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Stand 5