Delusions and Grandeur – Anthony Burgess Foundation
The best fringe moments are discovering something unexpected and brilliant. World-renowned cellist Karen Hall’s Delusions and Grandeur is both.
A thought-provoking, inventive and emotional hour of storytelling that is bursting with talent.
The blurb isn’t quite clear, though. “Come for the music, stay for the existential crisis,” it suggests.
Audiences are told to expect a “classical cello recital” that “plays out like a piece of performance art run by a masterly jester”. Its one of those examples of marketing that makes total sense after the event.
Hall’s one-woman show is, essentially, a recital of Bach’s famous Suite No. 1, interspersed with part monologue, part audience dialogue that tells her own musical story and poses some fascinating questions.
What does it reall...