Fascinating Aida arrives in the Fair City

Jun 5 2009 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

THEY were 10 years in the coming, but thank heavens Perth Festival administrator Sandra Ralston finally persuaded Fascinating Aida to bring their unique talent to the Fair City.

‘Unique’ is an often misused word and its inclusion in any review should not be employed on a whim. Fascinating Aida do merit the description – and a plethora of other words defining the superlative!

This reviewer confesses to be ignorant of Fascinating Aida before their Perth Festival stunner, but with the musical comedy show selling out months in advance this ignorance was not shared by the masses!

In a nutshell, Fascinating Aida is about three talented mature women singing and acting their way through the gamut of life’s scenarios – the funny and the serious – with extreme panache.

Their cutting-edge satire scores a bulls-eye every time, their cabaret-style show changes mood in an instance, never flags not falters, their clarity in the quick-fire deliveries is crystal clear, their timing impeccable.

The talented and versatile threesome are Dillie Keane and Adele Anderson who co-formed Fascinating Aida 26 years ago, and Liza Pulman who came on board five years ago. The delighted audience were also treated to a cameo appearance from Laura the company manager who delivered a delightful post-interval country number while the artistes were ‘delayed’ elsewhere (The Foundry!). All obviously stage-managed of course, but great fun.

Fascinating Aida’s material took a trip down memory lane and zoomed in on our current times, including the credit crunch, a highly irreverent Gospel song paying homage to Tesco and a cleverly put together song about Perth with a chorus rhyming John Knox and the Reformation with the lack of parking at Perth Station – now that is unique!