Take her up to the Globe

Roísín Murphy, Shakespeare’s Globe, London SE1 ***** 

Roísín Murphy quotes Twelfth Night during an intense and thrilling concert in Shakespeare’s Globe: “If music be the food of love, play on…”

This event for Lauren Laverne’s Wonderwomen series sees Roísín become the first ever pop artist to perform the most iconic building in world theatre. After a warm up DJ set from the BBC 6 presenter, Murphy makes her stunning entrance resplendent in Shakespearean inspired garb.

During the evening she will constantly change hats. “The way I put together a look is quite chaotic but it usually starts with a hat,” she once said. At this stage of the game, Mickey Murphy’s daughter has got it down to a fine art.

Quoting Hamlet’s soliloquy alongside an Irish ballad about the one-time biggest red-light district in Europe is playful, profound and irrelevant all at once – and you can watch it above prefacing a mind-blowing rendition of ‘Ten Miles High’.

“To be or not to be-that is the question,” Murphy muses. “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep – No more…TAKE HER UP TO MONTO!”

‘Ten Miles High’ is just another highlight in an evening full of them, including a rare airing of beautiful Italian songs from Mi Senti, ‘In Sintesi’ and ‘Ancorra Tu’. Murphy teases with snippet of ‘Sing it Back’ and reflects, “sixteen weeks at number one, that’s my bread and butter.”

The Globe is a stunning venue and it’s strange it has taken this long to host a concert. Roísín Murphy rises to the occasion with an inspirational masterclass of how to do it your way.

In the year of the bard’s 400th anniversary, Murphy is living and breathing proof of the Shakespearean adage, “To thine own self be true”, or as she said to me in an interview for Hairless Toys last year – “Don’t tell the vision people what kind of vision they should have.”

Read other interviews I did with Roísín for Take Her Up to Monto and Overpowered

More features and interviews here: https://eamonsweeney.contently.com