The show’s truly impressive feature is Lindon Barr’s choreography. The ensemble were incredibly tight and despite the ever changing story line, the movement in each scene was perfect. Barr should be proud of himself.
One doubts that this musical will be revisited any time soon – it may well have received too much exposure already.
LA POULE PLOMBEE – St James Studio
Appearing as part of the (now ended) London Festival of Cabaret, Sarah-Louise Young’s latest cabaret manifestation is a set entitled La Poule Plombée. Literally translated it means the “leaded hen”, which offers a sardonic contrast to Edith Piaf’s “little sparrow” (and of course sounds appetizingly like flambé too). However, Google a little deeper and one finds that Poule can also refer to a floozy or tart (human rather than pastry). And then remember that Young famously describes herself on Twitter as Cabaret Whore…
MY MOTHER SAID I NEVER SHOULD – St James Theatre
Paul Robinson directs with sensitivity as Simon Slater’s sound and music enhance proceedings, with the production marking an impressive debut by producers Tiny Fires. Go see this play – the acting is sensational.
FOREVER PLAID – St James Studio
The gingham tablecloths set the tone for Forever Plaid, currently downstairs at St James’ Studio. Look closely and the “menu cards” are actually the evening’s set list. If it wasn’t for the excellent performances on display, all that would be missing would be a juke-box to seal the illusion of 1960’s Americana that Forever Plaid so carefully re-creates.
WAY TO GET A GIRL – St James Studio
In a new and novel cabaret set, Colin Savage attempts to teach Michael Webborn, through quick witted comedy and song, the way to get a girl. We discover that pianist Webborn has struggled throughout his life to hold down a relationship with a woman. To counter this romantic ineptitude, Savage (in his own opinion a noted success with the fairer sex) attempts a masterclass – and as the evening pans out we watch Webborn reveal his failures in love, as Savage tries to pass on his wisdom and show him everything he’s been doing wrong.
THE WORLD GOES ROUND – St James Studio
Kander & Ebb’s repertoire is famously bleak with musicals that have focused on the rise of Nazism, torture and misery in a Latin American jail, racism in the Deep South and celebrity criminals and corruption in Chicago. Their shows are challenging, often making for very uncomfortable entertainment. So it makes for quite a paradox that The World Goes Round offers an evening of delightful musical theatre treats.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS – St James
The family friendly festive fayre at the St James this season is a delightfully performed take on Jules Verne’s classic novel. The stagecraft is ingenious as Verne’s visionary novel is condensed over two hours and acts into a 19th century global panorama.
PURE IMAGINATION – St James Theatre
Who can take a set list? Sprinkle it with class……
… as through two hours a delicious cast of 5 chart a course through nigh on 60 of the songs of lyricist Leslie Bricusse. Unashamedly a ‘juke-box musical’, the show marks producer Danielle Tarento’s first foray into that genre, with a combination of both song snatches and entire numbers as Bricusse’s remarkable body of work is referenced and respected.
MISS-LEADING LADIES – St James Studio
Before launching into a sassy opening routine of Irving Berlin’s Sisters, Ria Jones and Ceri Dupree tease their audience with a hint of Gypsy’s act one Let Me Entertain You – sung of course originally by that show’s child sisters June and Louise. And in that moment these two gifted performers achieve a rare and elusive vanishing point that sees dramatic irony fade into reality. For Dupree and Jones really are siblings, Dupree by a few years being Jones’ elder brother.
SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD – St James Theatre
There is a great deal of debate over how to define a piece like Jason Robert Brown’s iconic debut work; ‘Songs for a New World’. Some see it as a concept album, a young composer experimenting with snippets from a variety of unfinished or dismissed projects, others see it as a thematic song cycle, a collection of ideas about modernity. But in today’s world where song cycles can all too often be a lazy get-out for a composer looking to stage in his songs in a production that desperately needs a good book, it is refreshing to revisit this finely crafted work in a 20th anniversary staging of the show that truly defined Brown as a master in understanding the human condition.
McQUEEN – St James Theatre
James Phillips’ new play McQueen offers a lavish tribute to one of Britain’s most acclaimed fashion designers. That Alexander McQueen was to tragically take his own life at 40 only (ghoulishly?) adds to his iconic mystique – though as the play opens with McQueen contemplating his own mortality and then proceeds to take us through what is suggested to be his last night alive, the narrative’s structure at times suggests a re-branded Arthur Miller. In place of Salesman, think Death Of A Designer.
PAUL BAKER: A Baker’s Dozen – St James Studio
St James Studio, London
*****
Making a rare appearance in front of the microphone, Paul Baker’s show A Baker’s Dozen was a polished one-nighter that packed out the St James Studio.
In a set lasting little more than an hour, Baker’s magnificent tenor danced over numbers familiar and new in a set-list that was to prove pleasingly heavy on Newley numbers – reminding us that this fabulous British songwriter deserves greater exposure.
Quick to flex his magnificent belt with Streisand’s Being Good Isn’t Good Enough, Baker was soon into the first of his Taboo tributes with Stranger In This World – preceded by a touching if painful recollection of being bullied as a kid – and that his next number was a Quentin Crisp tribute, blending Sting’s An Englishman In New York, with Taboo’s Freak / Ode To Attention Seekers stayed on message in an inspired combo.
Fondly reflecting on Philip Henderson’s The Far Pavilions, the composer was in the audience to see Baker deliver a soaring take on Brighter By Far that had been re-arranged for the St James occasion.
As his selection went on to include Makin’ Whoopee, one wished for Baker to make an album of the American Songbook. The man displays a polished understanding of both lyric and presence, par excellence.
Performing solo throughout, there was one exception when director Frances Ruffelle (who had only recently been directed herself by Baker) joined him on stage for Nice from Lucky Stiff, a duet that reprised their 1997 pairing from the Ahrens and Flaherty show.
Maintaining a standard of nothing short of excellent, a medley of Newley greats treated the crowd to Once In A Lifetime, The Candy Man and What Kind of Fool Am I, with Baker also un-earthing Newley’s Pagliacci-esque The Man Who Makes You Laugh. As the singer sat at an onstage make-up table, donning the pierrot’s white slap and garishly rouged lips, the song’s irony was chilling.
Accompanied throughout by Alex Parker’s quintet, the music was perfectly weighted. Parker’s understanding of the subtleties of musical direction is unmatched for one so young – and under his command the evening’s musical ambience effortlessly ranged from cocktail lounge intimacy to big band bravado.
Wrapping his set with Taboo’s Petrified, a song that Baker has made his own, a few muffled sobs from the St James crowd evidenced the sensitivity of the moment.
This show is off to New York’s 54 Below later this month and Manhattan is in for a treat. The gig offers moments that are at times reflective, spectacular but most of all and for various reasons, simply spine-tingling. When he returns from the USA, A Bakers Dozen demands a longer London run.
Missed Paul in London? You can catch him at New York’s 54 Below on 19th May.
Scott Alan and Cynthia Erivo: Home Again – Review
St James Studio, London
*****
Coming in the midst of the London Festival of Cabaret, Scott Alan leaves a very distinctive handprint on the genre. Typically contemplative, his songs touch emotions that are common to us all – love and loss, rejection and reflection. It is however in Alan’s sharing of his life with his audience, (where his pre-song spiel can often last longer than the song itself) that he re-engineers cabaret. Where earlier in the week this pied-piper of songwriting had assembled a phone-book sized guest list of artists to sing his work, tonight was one of a three-night residency simply featuring Cynthia Erivo alongside the songwriter.
I have written before of Erivo’s handling of some of Alan’s most sensitive work and as Broadway beckons, it is plain to see that she is not only one of Alan’s most cherished friends, she is also fast becoming a muse to his creativity.
With one of the strongest yet most perfectly controlled voices of her generation, Erivo brings a polished fragility to Alan’s soulful verse, her take on And There It Is displaying an almost ethereal impishness as her lightly smiling face belied a lyric of complex emotions.
When the pair occasionally duetted, their sensitive counterpoint added a depth. Always, which ended the first half was exquisitely rendered and later it was to be Alan who (surprisingly) delivered the opening lines of Anything Worth Holding Onto before Erivo joined him in a song of remarkable profundity that she has long laid claimed to.
The act one closer was preceded by a confessional to the microphone of the painful loss Alan still feels for Kyle, an ex-boyfriend now deceased. As Alan sobbed at the microphone, there was a sense of witnessing a man on a high wire, as this gifted composer continues to challenge his demons, though any hint of audience prurience or of performer-sensationalism should be swept aside. Alan continually battles his depression and chooses to do so, at times in public and at a piano. His message to those who criticise his on-stage confessionals was blunt. Knowing that his words have inspired other depressives to choose life, he values that contribution over a critic’s carping. It is impossible to fault the man’s integrity, nor to be inspired by his message.
It wasn’t entirely Alan and Erivo. Oliver Tompsett returned to the St James’ stage with a gorgeously nuanced Kiss The Air, Alan’s paean to his mother left bereft after his father’s abrupt marriage walk-out. Tompsett was also to earn an ovation when he was thrust (by Erivo) into joining her in Never Neverland, a song that was not only out of his range but one that he was also completely unfamiliar with. Tompsett rose to the challenge – and where Alan can often be a Lord of Misrule, subjecting his singers to impromptu set-list changes and additions, it was a treat to see him for once hoist with his own petard, Erivo delightfully calling the shots.
Their sold-out run ends tonight – and if Alan needs anything to hold onto at all it is knowing that whilst Erivo is in New York with The Color Purple, the two of them could pack out 54 Below every Sunday night for a year. Get ready to book your tickets, you read it here first!
Jerry’s Girls – Review
St James Studio, London****Created by Jerry Herman and Larry AlfordDirected by Kate GolledgeSarah-Louise Young, Anna-Jane Casey and Ria JonesAfter the relative failure of Mack & Mabel on Broadway, Jerry Herman took a break from composition and embr…