Tales of Madness from Paradise: Melinda Hughes – OSO Arts Centre, Barnes

Tales of Madness from Paradise: Melinda Hughes at the OSO Arts Centre, Barnes.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Melinda Hughes is a very funny lady and one of a kind… an opera star turned stand-up comic and a singer-songwriter who pens wickedly topical lyrics.

Her current laugh-out-loud show is based on the chaotic year she had to spend marooned in Barbados because of the pandemic and it wasn’t all sunshine, sea and surf by any means.

If you thought Barbados was as close to paradise as you can get, Hughes made us think again. Her Caribbean adventures included getting Covid and being bussed along with other victims to a government facility where she was locked away for two nights and had to share a room with people she didn’t know.

Originally there to organise and perform at festivals at a five-star hotel, she found herself singing to the late Captain Tom, the war hero who celebrated his 100th birthday by raising over £32 million by walking round and round his garden with a Zimmer frame before linking up with Michael Ball to top the charts with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. ‘Marching On to Victory’ was a celebration of the Captain’s monumental achievement.

Hughes also made a pop video with Cliff Richard who has a home in Barbados and almost gave Covid to fellow comic Russ Abbot. All these tales and more were wrapped up in the witty songs she has put together with her musical director and accompanist Jeremy Limb who is far more than a superb pianist – his drole, straight-faced one-liners are a big part of a polished act. In support were drummer Jamie Fisher and Robert Rickenberg on bass.

Twitter abuse, cancelling, socially distant love, chlorinated chicken and baby boomers were just some of their targets and while one ditty was almost entirely one four-letter word, it is so cleverly done that even your maiden aunt would scarcely bat an eyelid.

The funniest song, because so truthful in relating to the legacy of hatred and political disaster our offspring inherit from us golden oldies was ‘Goodbye Baby Boomers’. In the hope it will encourage folk to see force-of-nature Hughes, here is the last stanza:

“So goodbye baby boomers, you had one hell of a ride

They say that you can’t take it with you,

But by God you’ve really tried

We can’t afford our mortgage, we’re all in debt

And still I bet that when you get to heaven,

You’ll pull the ladder up behind”

Tales of Madness from Paradise was enjoyed at a new venue to us, the picturesque OSO Arts Centre overlooking Barnes Pond in south west London. It now heads to The Pheasantry in Chelsea a next Wednesday (13 October) followed by two sessions at the Canal Cafe in Maida Vale on 16 and 17 October. Well worth catching.

And if you’re wondering what OSO stands for, it’s Old Sorting Office which is what it was long before being turned into a 74-seater theatre-cafe with cabaret acts and open-mic sessions form a large part of its calendar.

Jeremy Chapman