Showing @ Summerhall, Edinburgh until 24 Aug @ 15.40
When so much of the Fringe consists of one man and a follow-spot, it’s great to see costumes, quick changes, back projection, lip-syncing, opera, dance and props (including two gondolas..) in one Fringe show. Alison Jackson is famous for her satirical photographs of lookalike royals and celebrities in all too likely scenarios (the Queen sitting on the toilet) and for her BAFTA-winning BBC series Doubletake. Here we have some of Jackson’s greatest hits – albeit the usual suspects: William and Harry, Kate and Pippa, Lady Gaga and Simon Cowell.
The lookalikes in the flesh sing or lip-sync to re-worded arias with surtitles. In between set-ups there is phoney fly-on-the-wall footage projected onto a screen – the Queen having a Brazilian, Cowell and baby in a tanning booth. The live sequences are like an old TV sketch show: some hugely funny, others infuriatingly flat. The music is superb, the miming and live singing impressive (even the bawling David Beckham) and the body doubles convincing enough to roam (briefly) during the finale into the audience for goldplated selfies.
The demented humour might not be to everyone’s taste and the targets (save for Putin) aren’t that topical and too marshmallow by far. It seems that David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and Alex Salmond doubles were otherwise engaged.