Scotland

Standing In the Shadows of Giants – Traverse Theatre

You get the feeling that the substantial metal frames, the chunky lighting rig and mirror -walled set surrounding Lucie Barât on her oh-so-shiny red stage are all compensating for the flimsy mental scaffolding that supports her own psych, It teeters like a five-storey bamboo structure.

The show begins with Lucie launching into a song, she has a clear and powerful voice, before signing cut to the sound desk. She interrupts herself to talk directly to the audience and give us a bit of personal history.

Lucie always wanted to be an actor. But, from Drama School golden girl to dole queue drop out she fell, to call-centre fill-in, to failed STD advert auditionee and the very occasional paid acting job. A low point occurs in the earlie naughties when she throws up on the open-toed sandals of an A-List celebrity (Borlando Shroom (names have been changed for legal reasons)) whilst filming in Malta, a half-digested pill visible in the vomit.

In the middle of her acting failures Lucie also finds herself almost overnight in the shadow of her suddenly famous rock star brother, Carl Barât, from the band The Libertines. Whilst she is busy fluffing her lines, spewing pills and facing endless rejection he is seemingly taking over the world. As Lucie pours out her life on stage she stomps, whips the microphone cable over speakers, throws plastic chairs into position, kicks spilled pills off the stage, the recklessness, pain and unfairness of it all is real enough.

With her life on the rails, it is all too easy to fall further, inevitably into the orbit of her little bro’ and the rockstar lifestyle with the easy abundance of drugs and alcohol and casual sex.

As the star of her own life drama, it’s not easy to get behind a protagonist who has had a pill and alcohol filled spoon (silver or otherwise) self administered down her own gullet. Lucie’s tale is neither cautionary nor allegorical, it is just telling us how it was. In truth, the majority of the audience, myself included, would not have minded a few days in Lucie’s shoes, just not a lifetime of it!

Following multiple visits to rehab clinics and an unexpected turn, an unveiling, in her sexual identity she arrives at the age of 49 at her first Edinburgh Fringe. Hopeful, clean, talented, tuneful, introspective, happy, a new beginning? Definitely, maybe.

Times Vary – check venue – Till 24^th August

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/standing-in-the-shadows-of-giants

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 1^st August 2025

North West End UK Rating: