Lucy and Friends, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

by Laura Kressly

Lucy McCormick, performance artist extraordinaire and queen of the grotesque, starts off this show dressed in a felted tree costume. It calls to mind an out-of-place, awkward child in a school play unsure about what to do, but still enthusiastic. This is an appropriate start to the show’s premise: McCormick wants to put on a cabaret but doesn’t have any friends who could work on her show, so she drafts the audience in to help.

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Life: LIVE!, Battersea Arts Centre

photo: Holly Revell

by Laura Kressly

As her latest show further proves, Lucy McCormick is a queen of pop culture critique. Embodying her alter ego Lucy Muck, she debuts as a pop star but not one with the spit and polish of a music video. Instead she embraces an aesthetics of failure in both her design and dramaturgy. DIY costumes, gunge and water combine with her character’s emotional vulnerability to interrogate the high shine of celebrity and expectations of a music icon in this absurd and often poignant gig.

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