AN EVENING WITHOUT KATE BUSH (WINNER: Best Cabaret Award, Adelaide Fringe 2025) returns to London to Underbelly Boulevard, Tuesday 14 – Sunday 26 April, following critically acclaimed sold out tours of Australia and New Zealand. This is the first time the two-act version of the show has been performed in the West End featuring additional material and songs. Sarah-Louise Young, who made the show with Russell Lucas and performs in it, is an actress, writer, director and renowned cabaret artist. She has appeared in the West End with Julie Madly Deeply, Fascinating Aïda, La Soirée and Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, with whom she won an Olivier Award. Over 20 years of touring she has performed internationally, including Off Broadway and four seasons at the prestigious Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and closer to home with her solo shows, such as Cabaret Whore and The Silent Treatment. She has won numerous awards including The Stage Award for acting. We sat down with Sarah to discuss her upcoming performance.
Your show invites audiences to release their inner Kate Bush for the evening. Have you discovered that almost everyone secretly has a bit of Bush waiting to emerge once the music starts?
A surprise delight of touring this show over the past seven years has been to discover that you do not need to be a Fan Of the Bush to feel part of the experience. Lots of audience members tell me they felt swept along with the enthusiasm and energy of the night, even if they didn’t know many of her songs to begin with.
Maybe that’s because she writes about such big themes, not just boy-meets-girl stuff, but global warming, loss, recovery… even falling in love with technology! Listening to her songs and sharing stories can make us feel part of something bigger than ourselves. Our hearts beat in sync and for one night we are a community, united by music.
That feels especially important right now, to consider what unites us as opposed to what divides us, even if it’s just tapping your foot along to the music. That’s what releasing your inner Bush is all about.
Kate Bush’s songs are famously theatrical, full of ghosts, moors, storms and strange phenomena. Which song has proved the most delightfully chaotic to bring to life on stage?
I do enjoy the untethered mayhem of performing The Hounds Of Love. It’s the first time I invite the audience to join in with me if they want to (and I should add that there is never any pressure to participate, it’s ‘opt-in’ only. But for those who want to there are opportunities to share your fandom). I love roaming about the audience and seeing where potential playmates might be sat.
Cloudbusting also has the potential to go in many different directions too. Once I got a lass up to sing backing vocals and she was so good I just handed her the mic and let her finish the whole song. She was 14 and aced it. I love those types of moments when the show has a life of its own.
The title promises An Evening Without Kate Bush, yet her presence seems to haunt every moment of the show. Does it sometimes feel as though you are channelling her spirit rather than impersonating her?
When the show’s co-creator, Russell Lucas and I first conceived the piece, we knew it was never going to be a traditional tribute act. I have always aimed for ‘Essence Of Kate’ instead of an impersonation.
People do often tell me I sound like her and whilst I am deeply flattered, I never set out to try to imitate her sound.
Instead I play with how her songs makes us feel. For many people, she is the soundtrack to their lives, so when they hear the start of a track, it hot-wires them back to the original and that in turn allows them to access their special relationship with that song. It’s a privilege to facilitate their memories and be allowed to sing her incredible body of work.
It’s the same with the staging. We’ve taken inspiration from her dance moves, and we might tip a hat to a costume choice, but we never replicate something exactly as she did it.
For the eagle eyed there are plenty of cheeky Easter Eggs to hunt – a pair of red shoes in Hammer Horror, the dunce hat from Sat In Your Lap popping up in Cloudbusting for example. My feathered headress is a nod to Aerial and her love of birds. The Stage once said we “re-invented the tribute act” and I love that.
As far as I am concerned, there is only one Kate Bush, and although there are some terrific tributes out there (Mandy from Cloudbusting is amazing as as close as you can get to the real Kate in my opinion), Russell and I we were more interested in exploring how her music makes us feel and what it’s like to be a fan of someone who rarely performs lives themselves.
The show has travelled from Glastonbury to sold out theatres across Australia and New Zealand and now arrives in the West End. Have audiences in different places revealed different kinds of Kate Bush devotion?
Every audience is different and brings their own unique atmosphere but in Australia the song Hammer Horror sometimes gets a slightly bigger reaction than it does n the UK. I think it’s because it’s the only song she performed on Countdown (which was their version of the music show Top Of The Pops). When I ask audiences for their favourite songs I tend to get a few more from her album The Dreaming there too as it was inspired by her visit to Australia.
Festival crowds can be a bit more wild and free but honestly, the love felt for Kate’s music seems to transcend all cultural differences.
Kate Bush fans are famously passionate and wonderfully eccentric. What is the most memorable reaction you have ever had from someone in the audience during the show.
The show often makes people laugh and cry and I love that the act of sharing music and stories has the power to do that. I invite the audience to tell me about specific songs which are important to them and sometimes those stories are deeply personal and touching. Other times they are light and playful. We’ve had people come to the show dressed as Kate and share personal tributes like tattoos of lyrics or times in their life when her music has had a profound impact on them.
One of my favourite stories was about a year after a couple saw the show. The wife in the partnership messaged me and told me that before the show she was thinking of ending her marriage, but then when I asked the couple to slow dance during a song, she was so shocked that her husband said yes and would publicly show his affection for her in this way, she gave him another chance! They went to couple’s counselling and a year later are stronger than ever! We also had a couple get engaged after they participated in the show. Isn’t that amazing?
You joke that perhaps one day the real Kate Bush might quietly slip into the audience. If that actually happened, do you think you would finish the show… or simply collapse?
Ha ha, well I would LOVE her to come but I think she would have to wear a disguise because even if I managed to finish the performance, I don’t think the audience could cope with seeing her! Part of the joy of An Evening Without Kate Bush is celebrating the way fans come together to honour our idol. So events like The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever where people get dressed up as Cathy from Wuthering Heights and perform the iconic dance together – they have sprung up over the nearly 35 years she took off from performing live. If she were there in person it might make people feel inhibited… but to be honest, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Kate, if you are reading this, we have your tickets ready and waiting! Just say the word.