Edinburgh Festival 2003
Linda Marlowe- No Fear!
Assembly Rooms
TODAY’s CHOICE- THE HERALD
Watching Linda Marlowe fly through the air with the greatest of ease, as one does at the end of this one-woman vignettes, is a refreshing life-affirming experience. The most wonderfully demonstrative of actresses is no spring chicken, yet here she is, laying bare her back pages and all the heart and souls she put into them, with more guts and chutzpah than most young whippersnappers on the Fringe put together.
Here’s the original wild child, who moved from single parent to swinging sixties drug mule, to the frontline of what came to be known as alternative cabaret in pre-punk girl power troupe The Sadista Sisters. Scripted largely by director Gavin Marshall, from source material, but, of course, from La Marlowe, this is a more interesting memoir than any of Marianne Faithfull’s legendary if well-worn exploits, simply because they’re delivered with such throaty aplomb.
Marlowe performs without the aid of safety net, emotional or otherwise, and leaves herself vulnerable to her gloriously messy past having caught up with her.
Either way, it’s’S a textbook study in old-school flamboyance tempered by the wise-owl wisdom last excesses have left their mark with.
From rock chick to elder stateswoman, growing old disgracefully has rarely been delivered with such style and bad-girl panache.
Neil Cooper, The Herald 2003
FEARLESS
Linda Marlowe’s No Fear! is the kind of show that only the most experienced actor would touch, comprising as it does a whole range of styles, from stand-up and mime to magic and circus skills.
It opens with Marlowe imagining herself at 100 years old, performing a breathtaking wire-walk and this is an apt metaphor for the whole performance: a brassy, ballsy piece of work exploring the paradox that the only thing to be feared in life is losing our sense of fear, because this is what drives us.
It is, of course, an indulgent piece of theatre and something of a self-parody, but it also impresses with it’s u flinching honesty, courage and humour.
Marlowe acts out the idealism of her youth – her forays into feminism and sexual liberation- and touches on big issues such as divorce, child-birth, ageing and abortion. Each segment has been written for her, although the starting point was Marlowe’s taped accounts of her experiences.
Josie Lawrence’s Breathe, about the birth of Marlowe’s children, is among the funniest and most touching sections, while Linda Partridge offers a glimpse of the young Marlowe’s brush with Marilyn Monroe.
Marlowe is a well-known disciple of Steven Berkoff’s previous works, Women and Diatribe Of Love, cemented her reputation as a fine exponent of the dramatic monologue.
Although it is carefully rehearsed, No Fear! Feels like an intimate chat, with Marlowe even taking onstage cigarette breaks and outrageously flirting with the audience, and although it is an obvious vehicle for her physicality and her extraordinary voice – which ranges from shrill to huskily sexy – she has not lost the opportunity to learn new skills. The sight of her dispensing wisdom while dangling above the heads of the audience on a trapeze is a funny but liberating moment that, typically, lifts the mood and stays in the mind long after the play is over.
Annette Rubery – The Metro
Linda Marlowe 