21 March – 19 April
An internet search of the most influential blues singers of the 1950s and 60s produces some of American music’s most famous names of the time: Muddy Waters, Janis Joplin, BB King, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, to name but a few. Filter this search to include only British musicians and one name appears: Anna Ottilie Patterson. I hadn’t heard of her either. Until this evening. Yet for someone lauded by critics as “the godmother of British blues” and “the greatest singer to emerge this side of the Atlantic”, how is her name not more widely known, her musical influence not more recognised? Hopefully the Barn Theatre’s latest offering, a celebration of the life of arguably one of music’s greatest voices, will help to change that.
Jolene O’Hara gives an extraordinary performance as Ottilie, whose life began in a modest terraced house in Northern Ireland in the early 1930s and who found herself obsessed by the blues music popularised by American GIs stationed nearby during WW2. Finding fame with the Chris Barber Band, she went on to perform with some of the greatest jazz and blues musicians of her generation before withdrawing almost completely from public life.
Writer Richard Clements penned Ottilie in response to Patterson’s “disappearance from the cultural landscape” in the early 1970s, an injustice his play seeks to address. Premiering in October 2025 as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival, the show garnered immediate critical acclaim for O’Hara. It is easy to see why. This is a mesmerising tour-de-force which showcases O’Hara’s considerable vocal range and power, as well as her complete command of myriad musical styles and genres. Yet she is also utterly believable in a nuanced and compelling acting performance which captures the considerable highs and lows of Patterson’s remarkable life, her journey to fame and acclaim in the first act juxtaposed with a poignant and powerful second half as Ottilie’s relentless touring schedule leads to exhaustion, mental health problems, addiction and the loss of her voice, issues compounded by the breakdown of her difficult marriage to Barber.
Yet as O’Hara herself suggests, “this is far from a one-woman show”. Partially obscured behind a gauze curtain sit three remarkable musicians, led by orchestrator and musical director Zak Irvine, who is joined by Lisa Martin and Ben Flavelle-Cobain. Together, they are as fundamental to the show as O’Hara herself with a musical score which successfully captures the musical zeitgeist with an evocative, toe-tapping melange of jazz and blues numbers. Anna Kelsey’s imaginative and highly creative set is littered with authentic musical memorabilia and furnishings of the period, scattered around a rotating central forestage, like a vinyl record itself, which enables and invites us to see Ottilie from every angle, from her most joyful and animated, to her most despairing and vulnerable. Additional props – everything from teapots to Russian dolls – are visibly suspended from above the stage throughout, dropping in gracefully in beautifully choreographed sequences.
This powerful and poignant tale of the forgotten queen of the blues should, nay, must, not be limited just to fans of blues or jazz. I would not claim either genre to be my favourite. And yet this is an energetic, captivating production which will not fail to move lovers of music in any form. As Clements tells us, Patterson “lived for the thrill of a live audience”. The rousing standing ovation which threatened to deservedly erupt long before the end of tonight’s performance suggests Ottilie herself would have approved of this heartwarming and affectionate tribute to this remarkable, unsung, musical hero.
★★★★★ Tony Clarke 25 March 2026
photographers credit @ Alex Tabrizi
