When Edith Piaf died in 1963 aged 47 of liver cancer, France lost their most famous chanteuse.  She was called Edith after the nurse Edith Cavell who had hidden French soldiers from the Germans in World War One and Piaf herself was a symbol of French Resistance in World War Two.  Her music now more than 75 years after her death is still memorable and distinctly French.  Songs like “La Vie En Rose”, “Milord”, “Hymn to Love” are well known and the last was used in the French Olympics of 2024. 

What goes with the memory of Piaf’s passionate singing is her crazy sex life which is what Jamie Lloyd’s 90 minute production of Piaf concentrated on in 2008 rather than the entirety of her songs. Maybe it was because she was not in control of the spontaneity of her emotions that she sang with such passion?  We fortunately have top recordings so we can listen to the strength of her repertoire.  Piaf and Audrey Brisson’s diction is so clear we can hear every word of the lyrics.

In Piaf at the Watermill in Newbury, we have another first class actor-musician production under director Kimberley Sykes with Audrey Brisson, whom we saw in Amelie the Musical  in 2021.  Brisson of diminutive height is a powerhouse of Piaf’s chansons and she can act as well.  I don’t think she is off stage for the two hours of the biopic musical and her presence is extraordinary.