Queen Machine

Anna Lumb has a story to tell – and a point to make.  And she is a performer with many strings to her bow.  So, her show begins in form-fitting silver, and some expertly done and funny robot moves (setting up her theme, incidentally) and then some awesome hoop work... And we get to then her story...

Coming out of COVID, she scores a great gig, and all goes well.  She’s on a balcony celebrating with her colleagues and she falls off the balcony and snaps her ankle.  Lumb demonstrates this so cleverly and graphically that the audience winces and gasps...  What follows is some of her back story mixed with what had to be done about her injury.  Titanium is involved.  We learn about the amazing qualities of titanium – which is also important in terms of her point...  There are a variety of props.  Lumb contemplates a change of career – in heavy metal, say.  There are costume changes too – a motor mechanic’s overalls, red hot pants -

Lumb has a charming stage presence.  She doesn’t work at being ‘sexy’, but the audience is appreciative.  Her point or ‘message’ if you like – and it’s no spoiler to reveal what’s in her publicity – is that, with titanium now in her body, this mother of two, feels a bit robotic herself.  She predicts that titanium or some other indestructible metal may one day replace everything.  (Older folks might remember Six Million Dollar Man, Robocop and the Terminator movies.) So, when that happens, folks might as well be machines.  A woman who’s mostly metal might be a Queen Machine...

I recall an old movie called Dinner at Eight (1933) in which Jean Harlow, struggling to make conversation, remarks that she’s heard that one day robots will do everything.  Marie Dressler replies sweetly, ‘Oh, I don’t think they’ll be able to do what you do, dear...’  (Look it up.)  This show doesn’t go there...

Queen Machine is a sequel to Lumb’s Hard to Reach Places which met with much acclaim.  So, I wouldn’t want to deter anyone from going along to Queen Machine. Clearly many in the audience loved the show and love Anna Lumb. 

But at just on forty minutes, for me the show is too bitty.  A bit of this and moving on to a bit of that. The gags are funny, and the elements are there, but she doesn’t quite weave them together. Hoops?  Brilliant, highly skilled – of course - but so what?  Too many costume changes, too many props.  Yes, Lumb has a point and a story to tell but she diverts and pads things out with elements that don’t go anywhere.  At one point, she hauls a television set on stage and tries to get it to work to make a point about her childhood.  Then it’s gone.  And why the costume changes?   At the end, I couldn’t help feeling, ‘Oh, is that it?’

Michael Brindley