As Florence Foster Jenkins sings it's hard to believe such a horrible noise can come out of such a glamorous and statuesque woman.
Such contrasts are at the heart of Dutch physical theatre company De Koude Kermis's tale of the cult wannabe soprano, who filled concert halls with fans of her lack of rhythm and perilous sense of pitch.
Pamela Menzo's Foster Jenkins may roll her eyes when her put-upon maid, brilliantly played by Anne van Dorp, reads the guestlist to her next concert, but at the same time the divorced only child appears desperately lonely.
She lives in a playhouse world, skipping from one idea to another, typing out her own positive notices, and dragging her maid into her schemes as she hangs from a harness and pretends to be terrified by a bear.
The production is a disjointed and absurdist look into an eccentric woman's fantasies, with touches of Pythonesque spiralling logic and tinges of sadness and self-doubt.
Some aspects of the performance are left frustratingly open - it is only through delving into Foster Jenkins's back story that the bare chaise longue is explained.
And the audience is sadly only given one tantalising glimpse of Foster Jenkins astounding lack of talent in this almost dreamlike and occasionally disturbing creation, which will delight some with its originality but leave others cold with its almost wilful weirdness.
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