About the Show

The Back Room at The Star Inn, Guildford – Monday 03 July 2023  

We’re delighted to be bringing An Audience with Edith Piaf to The Back Room at The Star Inn as part of the Guildford Fringe Festival. It’s a chance to see the original award-winning show from the Brighton Fringe, which means two acts and an interval. Tickets are £15. Hope to see you there.

Running time: 90 minutes divided between 2 acts, plus a 20 to 30 minutes interval, according to thirst.

Lights up at 19h30, closing curtain 21h30(ish).

Did you know? Haslemere, 15 miles south west of Guildford, is twinned with the French town of Bernay where Edith Piaf spent part of her childhood. 

The Astor Community Theatre, Deal – Sunday 09 October 2022

On what will be Edith Piaf’s 60th wedding anniversary we’re delighted to be bringing an Audience with Edith Piaf to the Kent coast. We’re returning with the original Brighton Fringe two act show, complete with interval, for the first time since 2019. We do hope that you can make it. The Astor is a gem of a theatre and we’re sure that Edith would approve. Hope to see you there.

About Above the Stag Cabaret Lounge – Friday 24 September and Sunday 10 October 2021

I’m thrilled to be bringing An Audience with Edith Piaf to Above the Stag Cabaret Lounge in Vauxhall, London on Friday 24 September, and then again on Sunday 10 October which is the 58th anniversary of Piaf’s death. The show – party story, part song – is an amusing and informative narrative and commentary on the eventful life of the diminutive French chanteuse, punctuated with full throated renditions of her best-loved songs.

Total running time: 65 minutes, no interval, curtain up 19h30

About Paris on the Pier  – 25 July 2021, Brighton Palace Pier 

I’m delighted to be part of Brighton’s Pier Fest this summer with an affectionate tribute to Edith Piaf.

Piaf will be sharing the billing with Lo Polidoro whose music echoes the evocative and ageless sound of Paris:  romantic and defiant, dramatic and sentimental, melancholy, humorous and proud. Lo, born in Burgundy to French and Italian parents, has a voice which conjures up dimly lit cafes, dance halls and bohemian cabarets. Brighton and Hove residents might be familiar with Lo and her band from their appearances at Cafe du Jardin in Lewes and Paris House, Hove.

Total running time: 2 hours with interval (19h30 to 22h00).

About An Audience with Edith Piaf

Inspired by a lifelong passion for the songs of Edith Piaf, this show, part story, part song, is  an affectionate tribute to the diminutive French chanteuse; an amusing and informative narrative and commentary on her eventful life punctuated with full throated renditions of some of her best-loved songs.

An audience with Edith Piaf also introduces Nick Ford, a regular performer and soloist with Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus, and former winner of a Brighton Golden Handbag Award for Vocal Performer of the Year.

Running time: 60 minutes

About Edith Piaf Live at Nimegue

Written & devised by Andrew Farr & Peter Allinson

What compels a 55 year old, 76kg bloke from Stoke to portray the life of a singing legend who died aged 47 weighing just 37kg? All is revealed in this affectionate re-telling of the life of Edith Piaf, and re-imagining of her last filmed concert just ten months before her death. Piaf’s childhood was traumatic and she sang songs of tragedy, but she loved to laugh. This one-man show – Edith Piaf Live at Nimegue – tries not to lose sight of the laughter.

Running time: 80 minutes, and a 20 minute interval

About Andrew 

Swapping his native Stoke on Trent for Paris in his early twenties, Andrew’s first singing engagement was as an Edith Piaf tribute act at a restaurant called Chez Babette in the heart of Paris’ 18th arrondissement. A brief stint as Il Piccolo Pavarotti, singing Neapolitan arias, followed at a station brasserie in Rome.

Since then Andrew has entertained with songs and public speaking engagements at more than 170 corporate functions and weddings in stately manor houses and castles the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. High points included performing aboard Royal Yacht Britannia, on Tower Bridge, at Titanic Belfast and inside the City of Lincoln’s Victorian Jail.

Recent career highlights included singing to appreciative audiences at the Royal Albert Hall (let’s not get carried away, it was the Verdi Italian Kitchen at the Royal Albert Hall) and, returning to his adopted Parisian roots, at Le Vieux Belleville, a restaurant-bar specialising in French chanson realiste, just a stone’s throw from Edith Piaf’s birthplace in Paris.

The one man show Edith Piaf Live at Nimegue is the first piece that he and collaborator, Peter Allinson, have written for theatre. To say that they are absolutely delighted that this homage to Edith Piaf won the Critics’ Choice award at Brighton Fringe Festival in May 2018 is something of an understatement.