Eve: All About Her review

On stage, actor and cabaret artist Keith Ramsay cuts a slight figure. His black suit hangs off him like a clown – a look enhanced by paper-white skin under impossibly dark eyebrows and an unforgiving spotlight. It could be a barefoot Chaplin on stage, virtually hidden behind the microphone stand. Ramsay’s Eve: All About Her is a complex but engrossing monologue that deconstructs a fascination with the 1950 Joseph L Mankiewicz movie All About Eve.

It’s not a linear examination of the movie but a design for living, a naive attempt to deconstruct an obsession that spirals into a free-fall of classic quotations and gut-wrenching songs. Ramsay doesn’t stay hidden for long. Now standing, he moves skittishly around the stage, slender, expressive hands reaching out: suddenly, he’s Garland. Ramsay’s breathtaking Stormy Weather is worth the price of the ticket to Edinburgh alone.

The monologue becomes a marathon of bar-hopping, auditions and a stint on the burlesque stage where he’s suddenly Gypsy Rose Lee. Eve: All About Her is a messy trawl through the life of a performer who will do anything to get to the top but pauses to mourn the ones who did not make it. There’s never a moment where Ramsay takes the obvious or easy route. His performance style is engrossing – with every tilt of his head and twist of his torso informing the narrative. This is total theatre, cabaret-style, and Ramsay seems to drain every ounce of electricity from the spotlight.