Lady RizoShowing up 20 minutes late for your own show is by no means a good start but announcing that you’ve come straight from a festival, probably still high on acid and demanding the audience to scream as you seductively touch your hair, before ordering abrupt quiet once the same hand strokes cleavage certainly makes up for it. Enter Lady Rizo, Cabaret superstar.

For those of you unfamiliar with this artist, Lady Rizo (aka Amelia Zirin-Brown) hails from the United States and claims a most unconventional upbringing by theatrical gypsies whose phenomenal working ethics caused her to break away and seek out her own adventures or perhaps more realistically, “a world of harsh metropolitan sophisticates”. She would later find success as a chanteuse in New York supperclub, The Darby, where she is still Mistress of Ceremonies, entertaining such music legends as Prince, Beyonce and Jay Z as well as winning a little thing called a Grammy in 2010. Rizo’s vintage arrangements of pop songs from every decade as well as a natural comedic flair make for one hell of an evening.

With a voice reminiscent of UK pop songstress Paloma Faith, Rizo takes her audience on a journey of exploration and moderate fear as she ponders the people before her, looking deep into their eyes, sometimes singling them out. There were times I was quaking in my Converse, afraid to even look up and be claimed as her next victim. She performed insane arrangements of well known songs by Jimi Hendrix and the more obscure and wickedly funny, ‘I Google You’ by English author Neil Gaiman whilst sitting on a piano. However it was when belting out her own self-written work that you could see just what this woman is capable of. Her faultless and powerfully touching vocals reached breathless heights and she seemed to lose herself in a passionate and personal embrace. At the same time, this connection reached out across the audience, hitting us all like a puncture to the heart and I for one, felt very emotional.

Alongside a superb singing and song-writing talent, Rizo is quite possibly one of the funniest performers I have seen on stage. With the same dry approach as US comedian Sarah Silverman, she was a dream to watch and you could tell, as soon as she entered the vicinity that she is doing something she loves dearly. Good naturedly picking on individuals in the audience and interviewing one behind a screen on stage whilst she changed outfits: “You’ve never had sex?! Oh my god I love virgins!”, molesting her assistant Brendan and laughing her way through ridiculous and often very sexual anecdotes, which came complete with a vast amount of innuendo and full on finger sucking, Rizo could challenge any top comedian and come out shrieking the voice of her spirit animal (oh yes ,I forgot to add that little bit of audience participation…)

As Lady Rizo and her newly devoted followers said our so-longs and farewells, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss. However all was not lost, as a breathtaking encore was to be had complete with Rizo standing on a chair in the audience with only torches shining upon her, casting an unearthly glow. As she returned to the stage, it was obvious something very special was about to really finish the evening off as her band looked at each other with cheeky and excitable smiles before launching into a nerve shredding rendition of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, followed by one of Rizo’s heroines, Nina Simone. I cannot wait to go and see her again. Just perfect.

Lady Rizo will be playing at Edinburgh Fringe from 1 to 25 August 2013. For more information and tickets, see the Edinburgh Fringe website.