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# Edinburgh Festival Review: Don’t tell me not to fly @Underbelly
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/edinburgh-festival-review-dont-tell-me-not-to-fly-underbelly/
- Published: 2018-08-13T20:08:33.000Z
- Updated: 2018-08-13T20:08:33.000Z
- Description: Claire Sweeney, star of Brookside, Celebrity Big Brother, Chicago, Guys and Dolls and many more shows is as unpretentious as they come.
- Author: Brian Butler

![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/web-400-5.jpg)

Claire Sweeney, star of Brookside, Celebrity Big Brother, Chicago, Guys and Dolls and many more shows is as unpretentious as they come.

**SO it’s a shame** the producers of this hour of diva songs and stories have invented a very lame structure in which to present the entertainment.

Every few minutes a highly annoying and irrelevant series of video images pops up on the back wall and a question is posed for Claire to answer.

Though some – like her first appearance on a stage are relevant and interesting, some like what. Woman she would like to see on a banknote are clearly not.

She seems slightly non-plussed by the procedure and since its is done ten times in the show, it just becomes a source of annoyance and means she sings less than the audience would love her to.

Her life-story is interesting — child performer on working men’s clubs to stage star opposite **Patrick Swayze** and her bubbly honesty shine through, but in the singing stakes she excels.

From the title song right through to a stunning four-song **Andrew Lloyd Webber** medley, she barely sets a foot wrong.

She is surprisingly sexy in the *Trolley Song*, but well on top of her game in a raunchy medley from *Chicago* and an equally steamy version of **Peggy Lee’s** classic *Black Coffee*.

When she comes and chats and sings in the midst of the audience you can see why she has been a consummately successful entertainer for 30 years.

**Danielle Hope** and **Ria Jones** will each take over the role for the rest of August at the Underbelly at McEwan Hall, Edinburgh.

**Review by Brian Butler**