Memoirs of Lucy Bell

The Memoirs of Lucy Bell is a one-woman show, accompanied by a pianist and guitarist, about a prestigious fictional jazz singer, Lucy Bell. She tells us her life story after winning a top music award, mostly explaining that she owes her music career to the superstar Ella Fitzgerald. Throughout the show, she gives examples as to why Fitzgerald changed her life. We journey through the ups and downs of Bell’s success, from her teenage years in LA in the 70s, to performing in Clubs in New Orleans in the 90s, with moments where she expresses her emotions through an Ella Fitzgerald number.

It can be seen that Hope Murphy-Nanton, who wrote The Memoirs Of Lucy Bell, strived to create a beautiful piece of theatre, due to her trying to bring Ella Fitzgerald back to life through another fictional character. However, the lack of inspiring, funny or powerful moments made me reconsider the original concept behind this play. Many of you may be thinking, “but wait, how could it have lacked powerful or inspiring moments if it was accompanied by the music of Ella Fitzgerald?” Unfortunately, they managed to turn her soul-inspiring tunes into mediocre covers. Ella Fitzgerald had a vocal range so powerful it went through three octaves; I am not expecting everyone who ever performs her music to be able to match up to this, but Jade Nanton (who played Lucy Bell) lacked any diversity in her voice. Perhaps they should have avoided Ella tunes, and asked the talented pianist and guitarist to create original music for the character of Lucy Bell.

This show has too many irritating weaknesses. Nanton was unsuited to this role; it was hard to tell whether she wanted us to perceive the character as comic or genuinely serious. Firstly, she slipped in and out of various accents from English to several different US states, and over-exaggerated lines and hand gestures which made me feel like I was being patronised by a teacher or politician rather than being told someone’s memoirs. Due to these weaknesses, it became extremely difficult to concentrate on the actual meaning and words behind what could have been an insightful piece.

The positioning of the guitarist obscured the view of Nanton throughout, for half of the audience, so we could only see her feet, which made it even harder to be swept up by the ideas of this play. Surely, the view for the audience is one of the most important and practical things to consider when putting on a production, and yet even this preparation did not seem to be apparent. I wonder what Lady Ella thinks from wherever she is.

The Memoirs Of Lucy Bell played at The Space until 28 September 2013. For more information see The Space Theatre’s website.