PAST SHOWS - THE TRUMAN CAPOTE TALK SHOW written & performed by Bob Kingdom (1993)


	Written & Performed by Bob Kingdom Directed by Kevin Knight PREMIERED: Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh 1993 WINNER: Scotsman Fringe First 1993 There are four stages to American celebrity. The first and last are both "Who is Truman Capote?"... Truman Capote - social butterfly, gossipmonger and faded novelist - is brought back from the dead in Bob Kingdom's brilliant one-man show, dropping names until those names drop him. Never lapsing into biography or lecture, this piece brings the later middle of the twentieth century into sharp focus through Capote's slightly jaded eyes. Elvis, Camus, Frost, Marilyn, Thurber, Gore Vidal; all bit parts in the world Truman Capote moved through. The slightly seedy glamour of Breakfast at Tiffany's and the intelligence of its author shine through the script, bringing out the tragedy threaded through Capote's humour. Capturing the man and his times despite the Capote estate forbidding any direct quotation is no easy task, but Kingdom succeeds with ease. His performance is scarily accurate; the wardrobe, the mannerisms, the camp, acerbic humour is precise. But this is so much more than impersonation, bringing a man who faded from view, from the fame he craved, as the world lost interest, back into the spotlight he deserved - or at least needed.

"Mr Kingdom is at once paying homage and lamenting loss... he grapples with the mystery and tragedy of genius and its undoing. For the actor, the occasion is a tour de force; for the audience, much to savour and to reflect upon" (New York Times) "Creates new interest in a man of whom everyone was thoroughly tired by the time he died in 1984." (New York Daily News) "I knew Truman and I can only tell you the impersonation is hair-raising... Doing obscene, lizard-like things with his tongue, sipping his Stoli with a twist, Mr Kingdom keeps you enthralled with this... by re-creating the style, elegance and poetic tragedy of Truman Capote, Mr Kingdom, in one of the crowning achievements of the acting profession, has created new poetry of his own." (New York Observer) "Kingdom lets you understand Capote's wit and sarcasm, his lofty cynicism and camp posing as the defences of a man concealing vulnerabilities. The camp comedy of Kingdom's beautifully gauged and eloquent performance underlines the nature of Capote's dilemma." (Evening Standard) "Go straight to this show" (The Guardian)