Bijou

Bijou is a dramatic, curated tour through the life of a Paris madame, set to the sound of waltzes, foxtrots and old mournful music from a bygone era. Bijou (Chrissie Shaw) sweeps into a salon where the audience sits at tables, awaiting their host. She is visibly old, but far from faded, greeting all enthusiastically and launching into a spirited recollection of her life. It is a meandering tale of trysts and travails as Bijou leaps around, hopping from love affair to love affair and recounting every memory, glorious or grim, along the way. She relives her youth and the Great War with equal passion.

Whether speaking in French or English, Shaw's unbridled emotion and infectious charm shines through, lending life and drama to scenes that in other hands could be quite inconsequential. The intimacy she fosters with lingering touches on forearms and occasionally risque audience participation transforms an overblown account into an invested emotional experience. Throughout, Alan Hicks' beautiful, intricate music as the long-suffering salon pianist carries the audience along inexorably on a journey through time and space that is always entrancing, often funny, and never dull. Once again, the Depot Theatre's intimate theatre space has bred a strange but satisfying production.