Lucy Vickery

Martha Wainwright’s family affair

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issue 24 August 2013

Martha Wainwright was keeping it in the family at the Union Chapel in Islington last week. Arcangelo, the singer-songwriter’s three-year-old son, joined her on stage and had the audience eating out of the palm of his tiny hand; the spectral presence of her mother, the folk legend Kate McGarrigle, was never far away; and the evening was peppered with references to intense sibling rivalry with her irritatingly talented brother Rufus.

Wainwright stole the show, though. A gutsy set drew mostly on her recent album Come Home to Mama, a paean to motherhood written in the aftermath of her mother’s death and the scarily premature birth of her son. She effortlessly seduced the audience with a combination of whip-smart humour, smutty talk and an endearing line in self-deprecation.  The trademark heart-on-sleeve lyrics were delivered with dazzling vocals that ranged from a girlishness reminiscent of Cerys Matthews to a haunting, pared-back rendition of ‘Proserpina’, the last song her mother wrote.

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