The Marilyn Monroe Story, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh Fringe

A solo performance from Jojo Desmond as the fifties screen icon, taking the audience through her life from birth to early death.  As a show it's very much a case of good news/bad news.

The bad news first.  The script is dire.  It's 'in 1954 I did this' and 'in 1956 I did that', and not a lot else.  Like listening to narrated highlights of Monroe's Wikipedia entry.  There's a bit of speculation over the actor's death, but nothing you couldn't find easily elsewhere.  The play offers no insights, no real sense of Marilyn's character, just chronological monotony.

The better news is in Desmond's performance.  She's a convincing Monroe (if lacking in "jello on springs" factor so memorably uttered by Jack Lemmon!), in voice and movement and has clearly spent time studying the appropriate film clips.  Most of the show is given over to song and dance routines and she carries these well, and even has a better singing voice than the original.

None of which really compensates for the lack of oomph in the storytelling, and I found myself checking my watch well before the end.  It feels more like a personal fantasy/obsession being played out than a real effort to understand the subject.

Best avoided, unless you're a Marilyn obsessive.