An interview without Kate Bush
Multi-award-winning UK performer Sarah-Louise Young returns to Fringe World this summer with her smash-hit cabaret show An Evening Without Kate Bush, hitting the State Theatre Centre of WA from Tuesday, January 28 until Sunday, February 2, with tickets on sale now. LIAM SHOTTLE spoke with Sarah-Louise Young to find out more about her show, which pays tribute to one of the most influential voices in pop music.
What was it about Kate Bush that made you want to make a show about her?
As a lifelong fan, I was already in love with her music, but it was her absence from the stage for over 30 years that led the show’s co-creator, Russell Lucas, and I, to begin making what would become An Evening Without Kate Bush.
Since her 1979 Tour Of Life, which completely changed the face of live entertainment in terms of what was possible to achieve on stage, she made only a handful of guest appearances in charity concerts or popped up to duet with Peter Gabriel. Fans had to make do with watching old videos and sharing stories on fan sites. As she continued to make music, sometimes with long gaps between albums, her fan base remained staunchly loyal, and it was their experience we were interested in.
A few months into the making process of our show, she suddenly announced a run of 22 dates at Hammersmith Apollo in London, and the world went wild. As fans we were thrilled, but as theatre-makers we knew we had to pause production. We never wanted anyone to think our show was an attempt to cash in on her return, so we waited until 2019 before premiering An Evening Without Kate Bush. It was worth the wait.
You must have done some research for this show. What’s something about Kate Bush most fans might not know about?
I think there are a lot of myths about Kate Bush that the media like to propagate, such as she’s a mysterious recluse living in a mystic cave somewhere. But she is just private, really a very humble, down-to-earth person with an extraordinary talent.
One of the books I read multiple times was Graeme Thompson’s brilliant biography Under The Ivy. In it, he describes how she played with her voice to create different effects. Even asked her team to creep around the recording studio to try to frighten her on one track when she was personifying a haunted house! She’s also impersonated a donkey and an unborn child, so I don’t think she could ever be accused of being boring.
So, Kate Bush fans are known as ‘fish people!’ Why?
They are named after her record label which she founded in 2011. It’s a fitting moniker, as she has used water metaphors in much of her work, most notably on The Ninth Wave, a suite of seven songs from her 1985 album, The Hounds Of Love. We start our show with one of them called And Dream Of Sheep, which is one of our favourites. She recorded the video in a flotation tank in one take and nearly caught hypothermia—talk about suffering for your art!
What’s the hardest thing to imitate about Kate Bush?
Our show is a little bit different from a regular tribute act. I never try to impersonate Kate. Who could? Instead, we have taken inspiration from her movement, her theatricality, her humour, and her playfulness. Think ‘Essence of Kate’. People do sometimes come up to me afterwards and say I sound like her, but I think that’s the way the show hot-wires them back to their first experiences of hearing the songs. It’s a huge compliment of course, but not something I am aiming for.
What’s your favourite song and why?
This is one of the questions we ask our audience during the show, and it’s almost impossible to answer because there are so many. She is literally the soundtrack to my life! I adore And Dream Of Sheep and Under The Ivy for their delicate rich sounds and beautiful lyrics. I love singing Hammer Horror and James And the Cold Gun for their theatricality. My surprise hit is Deeper Understanding, which is a song about a man who falls in love with his computer and loses all sense of reality. The video features Robbie Coltrane, and it’s amazing to think she first released this in 1989, long before the internet went public. She was so often ahead of the curve.
As someone who has devoted a lot of time to Kate Bush, what’s something about her you still find intriguing or confounding?
I don’t think I will ever get over how prolific she was at such a young age. She wrote The Man With The Child In His Eyes when she was just 13 years old, and when Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour first heard her teenage demo recordings, she had already written hundreds of songs, many of which would go on to become major hits. She’s also a very shrewd businesswoman, and for that, she is an inspiration to millions of women all over the world.
An Evening Without Kate Bush hits the State Theatre Centre of WA from Tuesday, January 28 until Sunday, February 2, 2025. For more info and to buy tickets, head to fringeworld.com.au