The title on the posters, Cantona Sings Eric, dripped with possibility. Was the Bloomsbury Theatre to witness the Manchester United legend, actor and surrealist philosopher Eric Cantona covering I High-Kicked the Sheriff, Clapton style? Or reworking Eric Idle’s most famous tune as Always Hang on the Right Post of Life?
His entrance for this first ever London gig, having decided to set his poetic talents to music during lockdown and released a debut EP I'll Make My Own Heaven last week, promised even more. This most brooding, Rimbaud-friendly footballing icon strode from the wings into a theatrical spotlight in black overcoat and scarlet track-suit bottoms, arms heroically outstretched. For a moment it felt like he might justify his recent BBC boast that “The Rolling Stones should support me”.
Instead, his footie-shirted audience – familiar with four songs, but cheering all 80 minutes like he was the ENO’s most celebrated baritone – were treated to an hour-plus of anguished Gallic torch song wavering between the near-sublime and the comically self-indulgent.
Flanked by a pianist and cellist looping together pacy and dramatic accompaniments, Cantona was clearly aiming for the dusky, sensual chanson territory of Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg. Indeed, his impassioned husk of a voice, hardwired charisma and am-dram gesturing (a flourish of microphone here, the stroke of an invisible dachshund there) often managed to sell his laughably cryptic lyrics of romantic turmoil, self-aggrandisement and over-ripe imagery: “Around here came the wind of your smell,” translates the toreador growl of Mi Amor.
He reached impressively beyond too. The jazzy despond of I’m Just an Unknown Lover painted Cantona as Pigalle’s own Tom Waits, his Gallic whisper so seedy it had you checking your seat for bedbugs. Nick Cave menace prowled through Perfect Imperfection, while some Velvets-adjacent avant-garde outbursts enlivened Nowhere (Bang Bang), wherein Cantona gets hammered on Sex on the Beach cocktails and hallucinates he’s a chameleon.
An hour in, though, the variety on offer started resembling a Quality Street tin at new year, the bigger choruses were defeating him and the leap from celebrity to rock star was once more proving itself far tougher than to cinema, reality show or atrocious novel.
A devoted cult audience potentially awaits Cantona’s musical exploits, but for now he did best when playing on his hero status, closing with a sway-along fanfare to himself called I Love You So Much (“you called me Eric the King, even God!") and leaving to chants of “ooh-ah-Cantona!”. There’s promise here but, as the man himself might muse, the seagulls following the trawler may have to wait a little longer for the really great sonic sardines.
