Cabaret and Variety review: Ada Campe and the Psychic Duck, The Stand’s New Town Theatre, Edinburgh

Ada Campe is undoubtedly a one-off.
Ada Campe and the Psychic Duck, The Stands New Town TheatreAda Campe and the Psychic Duck, The Stands New Town Theatre
Ada Campe and the Psychic Duck, The Stands New Town Theatre

Ada Campe and the Psychic Duck, The Stand’s New Town Theatre * * * *

With a spectacularly peacocky headpiece atop flowing garments, a deeply mellifluous, over-enunciated voice and a demeanour of barely contained mischief, she could pass at a pinch for a slightly bibulous Edwardian spiritualist or rambunctious Wodehousian aunt. In fact, she’s a marvellous teller of tall tales, purveyor of puns and occasional conjurer, in roughly that order. This show shows off those skills to a tee.

Immediately commanding the stage with her charming sense of naughtiness and wide, darting eyes, Campe frames things with a skip down memory lane. She takes us back to teenage summers spent working in a fairground, balancing tedious duties with holiday romances and dressing as items of fruit. One night, however, she stumbled upon a Madame Canard’s magical woodland circus, an Angela Carter-esque enclave of faintly feminist fantasy populated by enough fascinating women to inspire anyone with a beating heart to forsake the mundanity of daily life. What came next – involving ping-pong balls, magic books and a quack or two – is then revealed…

BEN WALTERS

Until 25 August

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