Sarah Louise Young in An Evening Without Kate Bush
(Picture: Clive Holland)You don’t have to be a Kate Bush devotee to enjoy Sarah-Louise Young’s polished, slender show… oh, wait, actually you do. Part tribute act, part standup skit, part fangirl monologue, it sees Young bend her own impressive vocals round some of the singer-songwriter’s eclectic hits, occasionally hauling punters onstage to help. Since Bush albums can take an age to arrive, and she undertook just one headline tour in 1979, and a 22-night residency at Hammersmith Apollo in 2014, Young is filling a gap for the faithful.
Her voice is fine and powerful, just missing the top and bottom notes of Bush’s extraordinary range as she works her way through Wow, Army Dreamers, and Running Up That Hill. There’s a version of Babushka in Russian and some gentle mockery. “These are the actual lyrics!” she says of the word-salad that is Cloudbusting. Bush’s video choreography is broken down into six constituent parts, including a move called Champagne Whipcrack.
