Icy, intense Marling requires no audience
Laura Marling and 12 Ensemble
Royal Albert Hall & BBC Radio 3
Social distancing may suit Laura Marling, who has never been the most effusive of live performers. Even in normal circumstances on stage, she is about as chatty as a Carmelite nun, and as physically demonstrative as one of those human statues that stands around in public places scaring children when they suddenly blink an eye.
But there was something icily detached about her debut Prom appearance, played in an empty Royal Albert Hall, with only a string ensemble and a television crew for company. It was so still and focused it seemed to have negated the need for any audience at all.
In a pinstripe suit worn shirtless, pale blonde hair falling around her expressionless face, Marling cut a figure as striking as Bowie in his androgynous alien prime, the woman who fell to earth. She stood on a stage in the central circular floor of the venue, effectively with her back turned to where most of the audience should have been. Instead, she faced the socially distanced members of experimental unconducted string group 12 Ensemble without apparently acknowledging them. For their part, the black-garbed violinists and cellists stood in a sombre half circle, watching the star with rapt attention as they added parts that extended and enriched her melodies with velvety luxuriousness. It had the atmosphere of some weird religious cult ceremony.
Marling is an English singersongwriter of supreme lyrical quality and prodigious musical skills, with a mesmerising voice that shifts effortlessly from dry talk-singing to rich mid-tones and spectacularly easy-flowing high notes. Her long fingers moved deftly up and down the neck of her acoustic guitar in a virtuoso blend of picking, strumming and folk riffing.
Aged 30, this prodigious talent has already released seven solo albums and one collaborative electronic album, each filled with songs of poetic intensity and exquisite melodiousness.
During her Prom, she performed a solo cover of Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years, and there was nothing aspirational about the song choice. That is the company Marling deserves to be considered in. Yet there remains a stark, cerebral aspect to her oeuvre that is easier to admire than to love.
However the BBC market their pandemic Prom broadcasts, this was barely a live concert: it was a staged event. A masterclass in songcraft, playing and singing, this strange, cold, quietly intense show was like an act of solitary performance art that required no witnesses.
The Proms continue until Sept 12. Details: bbc.co.uk/events