Starting Here, Starting Now - Review

Waterloo East Theatre, London

***

Music by David Shire

Lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr

Directed by Gerald Armin

Gina Murray, Noel Sullivan and Nikki Bentley

As London’s fringe theatre emerges from lockdown into the current limbo-world of partial freedoms, any venue summoning up the cojones to put a show deserves praise and recognition. That they can muster a stunning array of onstage talent such as can be found at Waterloo East right now, only adds to the occasion.

So it is with the cast of Starting Here, Starting Now, a one-act, 80 minute three hander that stars Gina Murray, Nikki Bentley and Noel Sullivan and sees all three actors deliver five-star turns that take their vocal and acting skills to the limit, with even a smattering of carefully choreographed movement too. The trio offer up a cracking display of West End excellence. It is only a shame that the producers failed to deliver neither programme nor song-list for the evening - and thus individuals cannot easily be credited for their own moments of particular excellence. Accompanying the talented trio, Inga Davis-Rutter puts in a non-stop shift of flawless delight at her keyboard.

The flaw however is this vintage revue’s material, a self-indulgent arc of a song cycle that only offers up an occasionally perceptive snipe at our modern world. Maltby Jr. is no Sondheim and it shows.  Too many songs and not enough narrative make for an 80-minute haul that seems to drag far longer than the performers deserve.

That being said, for those who have longed for months to hear a cast of the country’s finest sing their hearts out in an array of perfectly weighted pathos and spine-tingling belts, then the evening offers enthralling entertainment.

Runs until July 18th

Photo credit: Gareth McCleod