I Am Your Tribute ★★★★★

Without fail, every year at the Edinburgh Fringe, there are always tribute-act shows. This year that sub-genre includes The Carole King and James Taylor Story, For the Love of Shane MacGowan! and The Taylor Swift Eras Drag Party among many, many others. Tribute acts are big business with tours around the country, and even their own Tribute Fest! This becomes one of the starting points that leads celebrated theatre-maker and much-admired cabaret performer Sarah-Louise Young to explore what it means to pay tribute to the musical artists we love.

I Am Your Tribute is an explosion of ideas, creativity and, somewhat ironically, originality. There are songs, stories, wigs (so many wigs!), laughter and audience interaction. The mere mention of the last of these is often enough to strike fear into the heart of a Festival goer but Young is such a warm, encouraging presence, you know you’ll be in safe hands and will want to be part of this inspired lunchtime cabaret. (Note to producers / bookers, make this show a bottomless brunch show, and you will have a hit on your hands).

There is much fun to be had from I Am Your Tribute. From Freddie Mercury’s moustache wanting to break free to a surprise musical legend in the audience, from one person’s silent disco to a group of new friends joining each other in song, there is a playfulness running through the show.

But Young also masterfully weaves in weightier themes with a deftness of touch. Drawing on her own experiences, Julie Madly Deeply, a musical love letter to Dame Julie Andrews, introduces an intriguing narrative of how a tribute may not always be welcomed by the subject of that tribute. Similarly, the darker side of fandom, aggressively protective of their favoured artist, is explored in relation to Young’s time performing her internationally-successful An Evening Without Kate Bush.

I Am You Tribute is a glorious, warm-hearted and endlessly-inventive celebration of the musical stars we love and the many ways that paying tribute to them can take. You’ll leave the show having sung, having engaged and having laughed. In the words of Judy, “Forget your troubles, c’mon get happy…”. Or was that, Liza?