An enigmatic and captivating performance, but a show that you really need to do your homework for
Eve: All About Her, is a one-man show created by and starring Keith Ramsay. This show began life at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, but has now transferred for a limited run at the Soho Theatre in London. The show was heavily acclaimed in Edinburgh and earned Ramsay “The Stage Edinburgh Award for Acting Excellence.” I would have to agree this was a brilliant performance, but the show itself I found incredibly confusing.
The show is ostensibly about the character of Eve from the film All About Eve which was released in 1950. This is a film that I have never seen and know very little about at all, so large parts of this show were very confusing. I have never felt quite so lost in a show before where it was clear that large parts of the audience understood everything that was happening but I was left bewildered. If you have seen the film, you would probably understand things a lot more, but if you have not, then if you see this show you should expect to be very confused for 60+ minutes. However, even in my confusion, I was rather entertained. Ramsay comes across as a very enigmatic figure and plays a wide variety of interesting and entertaining characters. These may be characters from the film or ones he has created, I have entirely no way of telling you, but either way it was well done.
There were a number of impressions and references in this show, some of which I understood, and others that I only knew were references by the laughs of some members of the audience. I cannot judge the accuracy of the impressions or the relevancy of the references, but seeing it all happen on stage was still rather mesmerising. Although I will impress upon you again, I spent large portions of this show with frankly no idea what was going on.
The highlights for this show for me, were the musical numbers. Ramsay is a really impressive singer and has a voice that really invokes that old Hollywood style mixed with modern cabaret. I really enjoyed these sections, especially the number involving a handheld red light, which was used to very good effect.
This show lives or dies by the performance of Ramsay, as it is just him on the stage alone for 60+ minutes. Thankfully he gives a huge amount of energy to this performance and really draws you into the world that he is creating, even if I found that world very confusing.
I find myself really only able to recommend this show to you if you are already a fan of All About Eve and/or old Hollywood in general. Otherwise, I think that too much of the show will go over your head, just as it went over mine. However, I am very comfortable recommending seeing Keith Ramsay in any other show they do as they are a very strong performer and I would love to see what else they can do.