Review: GRIT, GLITTER & GASLIGHT - THE SARAH MCGUINNESS STORY, Circle And Star Theatre

Singer-songwriter and general multihyphenate Sarah McGuinness is best known for her work producing whimsical indie documentaries about the standup comedian Eddie Izzard; in her one-woman show, though, there are only passing references to this. To put a finger on what the show is about is no easy task, because it’s a confused jumble of autofiction, metatheatre and campy musical comedy, which rarely elevates itself beyond an extended therapy session.

McGuinness’ accent, a soft blend of London and Northern Ireland, is ideally suited for a plot rooted in her troubled childhood as the daughter of a British father and Irish mother growing up in 1980s Derry. In a series of confessional monologues (“everything’s real in this, everything’s true”) interspersed with song, McGuinness is painstakingly honest about her experiences of xenophobic bullying on both sides of the Irish Sea, as well as of physical abuse from her family and becoming a ‘parentified’ carer for her several younger siblings.

McGuinness takes pains to distinguish her show from Derry Girls (“we were the older sisters of those girls,” the 50-something performer explains), but clearly takes cues from that sitcom’s lampooning of how normal Northern Irish life continued under deeply abnormal circumstances.

The overall tone of personal catharsis takes itself too seriously for this to work, though. When McGuinness inserts a self-written number in the style of an 80s power ballad into a scene about a police searchlight outside her family home, it feels like a misguided attempt at musical drama rather than black comedy.

The storyline becomes even less punchy when McGuinness moves to London at the age of 18; her tales of being ignored and exploited in the cutthroat world of 90s showbiz lack a necessary specificity, like gossip shared in the pub as opposed to crafted narrative drama. She tries to vary the rhythm by lightly tampering with the fourth wall, an ad-lib during a quick change here and an awkward flirtation with the prompt there, as though trying to pad out the drama and force a connection with the audience at the same time. 

There is saving grace to be found in the visuals: ringmaster tailcoats, opera gloves and glittering bustiers conjure a feeling that this is the show McGuinness, riddled with insecurities in her youth about her wispy, head-dominant singing voice, always wanted to perform.

The music is imaginative, too; musical theatre-infused covers of ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘Babushka’ chart the young McGuinness’ self-discovery in adolescence, and traditional Irish music is used poignantly to mark her path to fully accepting her identity. McGuinness’ voice has matured into a smokey alto that’s perfect for the numbers from her childhood dream show, Cabaret, peppered throughout the show.

It lacks cohesion, though. Kander & Ebb fans might point out that the message McGuinness wants to convey, that we all ought to be a little kinder to one another, is diametrically opposed to Sally Bowles’ turning the other cheek in the face of political and personal disaster. In turn, some of the other song choices are painfully literal: ‘Skyfall’ when the pandemic hits, for instance.

Grit, Glitter & Gaslight has fallen into the trap of thinking that every thought can be shared unsparingly on stage, that autofiction is a genre that does not require style or refinement. At almost two hours long without an interval, it could certainly use an editor.

Grit, Glitter & Gaslight plays at Circle and Star Theatre until 21 March