one4review | On 22, Aug 2017

It can’t be easy to stand on a Fringe stage and lay out one’s life choices in front of a room full of strangers. It must be even harder if there have been so many decisions that in hindsight were dodgy at best. Add to that the audience she had were in the majority I think ‘at the wrong show’ for them.
Eleanor Conway is an imposing figure with loads of presence yet her story of her debauched former lifestyle of sex, drugs, booze, with even domestic violence was not accessible to the vast majority of her audience.
The power of her messages, she is clean now and has been for a while, was diluted for me, when she highlighted the fact that only a couple of people understood her references and she said ‘I am only doing this for you now’ effectively shutting the rest of the paying audience out.
It was obvious that the audience wanting to get involved constantly, the lack of rapport with her alleged crush on the night made this a definitely a bad day at the office for Ms Conway, I’m sure on another night it would have worked better for her and of course that can be forgiven. What can’t is the fact that she seemed to give up. Surely even an unresponsive crowd can’t be the hardest struggle she has had to overcome?
**
Reviewed by Geoff
Stand 4
22.35 to 23.45
Until 27th