Interview with Camille O’Sullivan, Loveletter
Voted ‘Top 25 Performances ever on Later with Jools BBC’ (Daily Telegraph) and ‘queen of the Edinburgh Festival’ (BBC), Camille O’Sullivan brings their piece ‘Loveletter’ to the Soho Theatre Walthamstow this month. A love letter in song, Camille celebrates dear friends Shane MacGowan, Sinéad O’Connor, David Bowie, Radiohead, Brel, Nick Cave, and more. We caught up with Camille to find out more about the influences behind the production and more.
1. Where did the inspiration behind your show ‘LoveLetter’ begin?
It was a deeply personal response to the passing of Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O’Connor — a love letter in song back to them, and to the artists who shaped me musically: Nick Cave, Bowie, Tom Waits. A way of singing thank you.
Shane and Sinéad were two legendary, authentic artists I grew up inspired by, and later came to know Shane as a dear friend, touring with him and The Pogues, and spending some of the last days with him. Their loss was felt profoundly back home, and here also in the London Irish scene, too, giving many of us a voice that changed us as Irish. For women especially, Sinéad gave permission to be fearless and uncompromising. She was ahead of her time: fierce, fragile and utterly true. Neither of them ever compromised — punks to the end.
After Shane’s funeral, I wanted to hold onto the joy and love we felt that day, singing him farewell. I found myself sitting with the words of his songs. I couldn’t listen to the music for a while, so I discovered the poetry of the lyrics instead. Without the backbeat of the great t band, poetry and vivid scenes flow through his lyrics.
2. You’ve performed it in Edinburgh, Australia and across Europe. Why was it important to allow London audiences to experience this piece of work?
Their music is loved all over and each audience responds differently in a way, London was like a perfect spiritual and punk home for the show, it was the place Shane formed the Pogues and like Bowie and Kirsty McColl spent much of his time hanging in Soho, and his work was inspired by London and refers to it, ‘The Main drag’, ‘rainy night’, Lullaby of London’ ‘Broad Majestic Shannon’, it’s like taking a lonely walk around the city at a time in the 70’s & 80’s through his eyes, wonderful storyteller. Edinburgh and Dublin was close so the funeral so felt very personal, intimate and spiritual, Australia was by then celebratory and joyous but London felt very special to play their work this is where it really began for them, it wasn’t just an Irish scene it was the London punk scene for Shane, and I have such great memories of performing Brixton academy and London 02 with them, such alchemy and anarchy on stage I had never seen before, there is still a great love for these artists here.
3. For those who don’t know much about it, can you give a little synopsis of LoveLetter?
I always find it difficult to explain, as I’m getting more tangential, having decided to unravel on stage! So here goes.. the show is about joy and emotions, revealing yourself through songs, it’s been likened to a roller coaster of emotion, music mixed with theatre, ballad, and rock, all about storytelling and inhabiting songs that I love and have inspired me. It’s about making them your own, so it’s not a tribute in that sense, more like an actress singing a monologue. It allows you to be chameleon-like, I’m very emotional and leaning into vulnerability, but also the rock n roll aspect of music. I choose a variety of very different songs and love the element of surprise, allowing you to show all the different aspects of yourself, vulnerable, funny, sad, joyous, the dark and light of yourself. People have said to check on YouTube, look at around ten very different songs to get an idea! This show is very personal, but also I’ve decided to let myself unravel on stage (my boots are held together by gaffa..) and enjoy the madness of life, someone said I loved it before when you were enigmatic, but since you’re losing it I REALLY love it! Just be real and let you and the audience enjoy the music as freely and uninhibited as can be.
4. Your work celebrates your musical heroes, like Sinead O’Connor and David Bowie - what was it about these people that made them so fundamental to the work you have created?
I first heard these artists through my big sister’s bedroom wall late at night — Brel, Bowie, Shane, Sinéad, Dylan — shaped who I am, the soundtrack to my growing up in Cork. Their songs have great characters and stories to inhabit, finding something else in you, made me dance, cry, laugh; they took me out of my shyness and showed me how to tell stories through music. Later in college studying Architecture, I discovered Nick Cave.
I’ve always been drawn to artists like Bowie, Cave, Cohen and MacGowan — modern-day poets who write about beauty and darkness. I love bringing a female energy to their songs, finding surprise and emotion in every performance. It’s unusual for me (having been born in London to a English dad and French mum and reared in a village in Cork) as an Irish singer to finally sing Irish songs as I never felt drawn to it before this very personal response of loss— it’s been a spiritual journey, and in a way, a love letter to the music that shaped me
5. If you could add in other heroes, not specifically music-based, but could add a different layer to your work, who would you choose and why?
Maybe from my previous career, Peter Zumthor the Swiss architect adding minimalism simplicity and beauty in design on stage bringing people through diff artistic spiritual spaces, (the band always joke I rehearse more like an architect then musician, now we need to bring them to this space..) those sadly passed: Pina Bausch the brilliant dance choreographer, love to have had her on stage dancing or shown me how to! And Irish actor Donal McCann, just for him to speak the songs like poems, his voice, stillness, and presence
6. Has Loveletter had any changes during the runs from each city you’ve toured it to?
Luckily, not really, I might have sung some more Shane in Edinburgh, but by Australia, it was the show you’re seeing now. I’m nervous at best of times, and Feargal and I just had the best time together on stage, both spiritual, love hymnal, and then explosive rock n roll and mixing some classical in it too. I had never sung Irish music before, but I usually decide to make the show full of interesting variety, so it’s quite a broad show mixing artists of different genres and countries, yet all of them are known worldwide.
The main thing is how to interpret them and the emotional part for everyone to connect with. I tend to let the songs take people on the journey, so you don’t need to discuss who wrote it. The nicest compliment is they think it’s my song, or if they know it, have said I never heard the lyric like that before, or the story of the song.
I think the show started from a personal response and need for myself to sing stay close to the people I missed, and then just became about music and the joy of it, the dark and light of it.
CAMILLE O’SULLIVAN PERFORMS LOVELETTER AT SOHO THEATRE WALTHAMSTOW ON 9 JANUARY 2026
Full details and to book here https://sohotheatre.com/events/camille-osullivan-loveletter/
