Someone Else’s Story

One of the joys of the Fringe is the variety of venues used, and the well-known Star Theatres, are two versatile, out of town venues, with Star Theatre two being perfect for Bec Pynor’s show, Someone Else’s Story. This award winning 60-minute show is back after a sell-out season in 2024 and the show I saw was packed with friends, fans and admirers.

The set is simple and tasteful, and strangely not used with a beautiful large cane chair that kept beckoning me as a great spot for a song. Twinkling footlights added glamour and fun.

Pynor, accompanied by fine pianist, talented Daniel Brunner, shares her deeply personal life journey from the seven-year-old girl surrounded by her grandparents’ love and infectious passion for music and musicals, through her high school journey where she first became a leading lady, and her Music Degree studies in Queensland that stretched her, polished her and helped her to become the modern musical talent that she is today. She sings 14 songs, each representing personal challenges, milestones and awakenings, and given the diversity of songs, I would have appreciated, to help me with context, her naming the songs as well as singing them.

I kept wondering what Pynor was doing on a little stage here in Adelaide. She sings beautifully, phrasing, breathing, embracing the style and skill of a leading performer with passion, grace and ease. She opened the show, tall, still, beautifully gowned, star-like, spotlit. Her voice ‘soars’, note perfect. Perhaps the show is a little static; fortunately, her singing is mesmerising and her duet with Brunner was a delightful change of pace and style.

Pynor shares what she describes as ‘only the lessons that music can teach’, urging the audience to not let fear impede their dreams, a lesson she has learnt well. I have become a Pynor fan and hope the next time I see her, she is where she ultimately belongs, on a national or international stage.

Jude Hines

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