Chopin’s Last Tour (C Arts Lauriston Street) is a one-man show with Chopin played by Anvil Creek Theatre (Australia)’s Phillip Paughey, and depicts Chopin’s time in Scotland a year before he died. Despite being gravely ill and love-lorn, he was still performing, apparently much against his own better judgement.
The show is a monologue, with Paughey’s Chopin bemoaning his lot and everything he has lost. Not the most uplifting of subjects, yet there is some wry humour in it all. It does tell us quite a lot about Chopin’s demise and about his life more generally, particularly about his loves, lost and found.
The theatre space is small and slightly claustrophobic, and warm enough that it appeared some of the audience were asleep during parts of the show. If you have accessibility issues, I’d advise you to contact the venue before buying a ticket. There was a lot of scrambling between chairs and the upright piano on the stage to both enter and exit, and the seats are very close together.
Paughey’s delivery is somewhat one-dimensional, despite the occasional tubercular cough and real tears. His accent is more than a little hybrid: an Australian-tinged faux-Polish accent, but delivered, of course, in English, and it didn’t quite cut it for me. Unless your impersonation skills are polished, perhaps it is best left well alone. At the end of Chopin’s Last Tour, Paughey mentioned he was also performing other shows about different musicians, so perhaps turning on the right accent for each show is too much of a challenge.
The biggest challenge in Chopin’s Last Tour was, however, Paughey’s rendition of six Chopin piano pieces. Sadly, he didn’t play any of them faultlessly and the ladies behind me were left wondering if this seeming incompetence was deliberate. I don’t think so. In such a small venue, it was more than a little embarrassing, and I have to admit I was glad the show was only 45 minutes rather than the more common Fringe hour-long show.
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Listings and ticket information can be found here
