Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

It’s great to see a comedian display a talent beyond stand-up, and Madame Chandelier shows off her impressive operatic singing from the get-go, taking to the stage to a full-throated Ride Of The Valkyries, hitting the glass-shattering high note early doors.

She’s here, as the title promises, to try to save opera. The art form is dominated by sexist storylines and female characters who have no agency. So our diva in the vertiginous pink wig, almost as tall as she is, vows to rewrite some of the greatest hits so they pass the Bechdel test.

In a speaking voice that has the air of a starlet from Hollywood’s golden age, she jokes about opera’s preposterous plots such as the storyline from Siegfried in which drinking dragon’s blood grants the ability to understand birds. And yes, that will come back later in the show…

A rewritten version of Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For A Hero summarises her aims, while snippets of the Wonder Woman theme play through the hour, just to reinforce the theme, which is essentially ‘why do operatic heroines always have to die?’

Five classic works get the Chandelier treatment, the original narratives given feminist twists which the audience help her act out. They are often ridiculous, though that’s not entirely out of keeping with the originals. Carmen dodges the fatal knife blow, The Marriage Of Figaro ends in divorce and Faust is persuaded not to make a deal with the devil and start educating himself with some Virginia Woolf instead.

Audience members, if willing, are recruited to help her out, and it’s quite impressive how our guide keeps belting out opera’s hits while driving the clowning, too. 

Some sobering facts about the likes of domestic violence are inserted, none-too-subly, but it’s clearly information Delea Shand, the Canadian singer beneath that wig, is keen to impart, reminding us there’s serious intent behind her silliness.

The show’s  format is cyclical, getting slightly ​stuck in a rut of repetition, while some of the explanations can be laboured. But the set pieces are fun, juxtaposed with stirring singing that emphasises the absurdity as much as lending a touch of class. And how better to end a show that with a Nessun Dorma dance party?

Review date: 26 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Just The Tonic at The Caves