EdFringe Review: Liberace and Liza – A Tribute

It’s nothing new to say that tribute acts usually sit at the less respected end of the showbiz spectrum, often viewed as glorified karaoke. It’s a misguided view. Done well, tribute concerts inject the adrenaline-spiking joy of live performance into music you may never hear played by its originators. In Liberace & Liza: A Tribute, arriving at the Fringe following a successful West End run at the Harold Pinter Theatre, David Saffert and Jillian Snow offer a fiercely entertaining, high-camp imagining of a double act that never actually happened.

---

Why does it work? Because they are both immensely talented and have clearly put hours into perfecting this exhilarating hour of unadulterated entertainment. Liberace and Liza Minnelli never shared a stage in life, but this production proves they absolutely should have.

From the moment Saffert appears at the piano in a sequined cape—shortly before revealing an aquamarine kilt and muppet-skin sporran—the tone is set. He plays Liberace with bottomless self-regard and a cheeky grin, while Snow captures Minnelli as a scattered bundle of manic, restless energy. Neither slips into easy caricature; what they create is closer to a pastiche, with the lightest touch of cartoonish energy. Neither musician ever needed anyone’s help to be larger than life — there’s just no need to go any more OTT than they would have!

They back up their delightful characterisations with serious technical skill. Saffert is a classically trained virtuoso pianist with a real feel for boogie-woogie fun. (Personally, I’d also like another instrumental number from Liberace, but that’s horses for courses.) He effortlessly blends showpieces like Carmen with dizzying medleys played entirely without sheet music. Snow matches him with a powerhouse vocal performance, capturing Minnelli’s specific vocal tics, breath control, and dramatic belting without ever breaking character. The show might be funny in the absence of such expertise, but with it the result is the next best thing to being in the room with two stage legends behaving as you’d hope.

Classic Standards and Pop Surprises

The staging at Underbelly Bristo Square is simple but effective, featuring a grand piano, a candelabra, and a stool for Liza. The pair spend the hour playfully competing for the spotlight, trading witty barbs and interacting heavily with the crowd. Saffert works the front rows with easy, improvisational charm, while Snow details Liza’s incomprehensible memories of her mother, Judy Garland, and defends her affection for the 1988 box-office disaster Rent-a-Cop.

Musically, the show delivers at least some of what fans might expect, featuring standards like “Cabaret” and “Theme from New York, New York.” However, the production elevates itself from a railroaded nostalgia trip into something more unpredictable through its modern songbook. A Liberace and Liza rendition of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” is far funnier and more musically satisfying than it has any right to be. They apply the same old-school Hollywood treatment to Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” and the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe,” before closing the set with a brilliant encore of Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.”

This choice of finale, however, is the only place where the show has any room for improvement. You simply do not encore a sensational performance of “Maybe This Time” with a decent pop-banger. Switch ‘em around, and watch the people surge to their feet come the final notes.

It’s important to say that the show’s modern additions never feel like lazy attempts to fish for audience recognition. They are cleverly arranged and woven right into the camp logic of the evening, acting as though Liberace and Liza had simply been waiting decades to gather the right collection of pop standards.

In a festival frequently dominated by heavy, serious theatre, there is something deeply refreshing about an hour so entirely committed to simple, unapologetic joy. Saffert and Snow possess immaculate comic timing, ridiculous vocal and instrumental talent, and a competitive chemistry that never flags. It works for the reason all great tributes work, because it’s conjured with enormous love and equivalent talent. Where most are content with reproducing the music alone, Liberace & Liza: A Tribute goes one step further. What an astonishing, delightful, and unforgettable display of musical brilliance. Bravo!

---

---