BILL MURRAY, JAN VOGLER AND FRIENDS
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Touring internationally until November 17
The warning signs were there even before Bill Murray and musical company came on-stage. In the second row of the Festival Theatre stalls sat a pair of fans wearing bright red beanie hats identical to those worn by Murray in Wes Anderson’s film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou.
In other words, this show, in which Murray reads excerpts from selected texts and sings to musical accompaniment, is very much for the American actor’s devoted fans. Not, you understand, for the millions (such as myself) who consider him to be a brilliant movie actor, but for those whose admiration has tipped into hero worship.
Only such an audience would accept a production that is as lazy and self-indulgent as this one. A disjointed, loosely arranged assemblage of words and music, ranging from James Fenimore Cooper to Mark Twain, Franz Schubert to George Gershwin, it makes a mockery of its claim to “showcase the core of American values”.
Unless, that is, the “American values” in question are cashing-in on your fame and taking your audience for granted.
The readings, which touch upon slavery in the United States and the US Civil War alongside lighter subjects, are delivered straight in Murray’s fine actor’s voice. It is in song, however, that the movie star really comes into his own.
Let’s not beat around the bush: Bill Murray is a supremely awful singer. His croaking of Loch Lomond, in a dreadful accent that sounded more Irish than Scottish, should have seen him run out of town.
Here, however, this disappointingly sentimental, blatant attempt to ingratiate himself with his audience led to a standing ovation. That said, one couldn’t help but feel that this crowd would have got to its feet if Murray had simply sat on stage reading from a telephone directory.
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