Emma Kingston - Review

Live at Zedel, London

****

Emma Kingston

The early evening Saturday slot at Live At Zedel saw a full house enjoy Emma Kingston’s solo cabaret debut. Known within the industry and to her growing fan base as a powerhouse performer with a stunning voice, Kingston delighted for a non-stop hour in a set list that spanned the decades.

Accompanied by MD Freddie Tapner on piano, the song choices drew mainly from Kingston’s personal favourites rather than her career and not surprisingly the anecdotes with which she confidently peppered her routine were drawn mostly from loving family experience. Her brief tale however of being asked, at a moment’s notice, to provide emergency cover to In The Heights, nearly two years after she’d last played the show, hinted at this talented woman’s already impressive career.

There was an evident love for Streisand with the famous singer’s work popping up several times in the hour. Funny Girl’s People was gorgeous, while for an encore the audience were offered Piece Of Sky from Yentl, with Kingston making the number a glorious finale. 

Vocally magnificent throughout. Kingston’s is a voice of amazing power combined with her pitch perfect ability to hold a note forever. But majestic strength does not always equal dramatic presence. As she offered up a beautifully sung take on The Man That Got Away, perhaps one of the most poignant torch songs ever, it was noticeable that for that song to really work it needs to be sung (much) later than 7pm, and ideally by a weathered chanteuse with perhaps a few more miles on the clock than the disarmingly youthful Kingston. In an enchanting nod to her age and heritage however, Kingston (along with the talented Tapner) had put together a well woven medley of Disney numbers that, amongst others, saw Ariel segue into Pocahontas segue into Elsa.

One of the gig’s sweetest spots was hearing a perfectly nuanced She Used To Be Mine from Waitress. Kingston’s take on Sara Bareilles’ ballad was flawless and casting directors should be taking note of this contender for the role of Jenna, should the show ever cross the pond.

Notably absent from the evening were anything from Fiddler (where Kingston had played an exceptional Hodel at Chichester last year) nor from Les Miserables, where she had served an lengthy stint. Next time perhaps....

Emma Kingston’s career has been outstanding to date - and as this review is published she has already arrived in Taiwan, returning to the role of Eva Peron (a casting personally approved by Andrew Lloyd Webber) in an international tour of Evita. Singing only one song from that show Kingston treated us to You Must Love Me. Hers was a powerful, beautiful interpretation proving why she is one of the finest performers of her generation.

John Barr - Self Portrait

Crazy Coqs, London

*****

Apparently it's been 5 years since John Barr last performed in cabaret,but judging by his slick and polished turn at the Crazy Coqs, you would think he was riding high, mid-season. Diminutive in stature (he jokingly boasts of being the tallest in his family) and shaven headed, Barr has a stage presence that demands your attention. He hits impossible harmonics and sustains perfectly held notes that go on forever. If Barr's voice was a motorbike it would be a Harley-Davidson, comfortable, beautiful to listen to, a world class standard that is designed to be appreciated and as able to deliver guttural exhilaration as it is to instantly switch to beautifully breezy ballads. 

Any good cabaret set demands a repartee with the audience that reaches out across the "fourth wall". Barr doesn’t just bring that wall down, he demolishes it and with a devilishly cheeky grin and twinkle in his eyes, proceeds to dance upon its rubble throughout the evening. With Fiz Shapur on piano it is clear that these two talented professionals have an innate understanding of each other. When Barr chats too much, Shapur whisperingly suggests that he should "shut up and sing".

It is a gloriously eclectic selection that opens with Starting Here, Starting Now, sweetly defining Barr’s ballad credentials with the Tear Up The Town that follows, a fine display of tone and impact. A reference to his early days at Sylvia Young's theatre school (contemporary alumni Frances Ruffelle and Jenna Russell were in the crowd) was the intro to his fond look back on a childhood Sondheim showcase with Anyone Can Whistle and clearly adoring Streisand, his What About Today is a glorious tribute to the diva. Barr speaks warmly of his brief work with Anthony Newley before offering a fine take on Newley's signature number What Kind Of Fool Am I? and he goes on to close act one with Pippin's Corner Of The Sky, boastfully, brazenly, telling the crowd how proud he is that composer Stephen Schwartz often asks him to sing the number. Having bigged himself up, (hey, if you got it, flaunt it) Shapur leads in with a beautiful arrangement of the song's haunting opening and whilst its lyrics may sometimes be corny, Schwartz's sublime melodies and key changes were simply smashed. Eagles did indeed belong where they can fly, as Barr soared off for a well earned half-time break.

Act two saw some reflective moments on Barr's past loves before a fine interpretation of Nat King Cole's Nature Boy. The little known Mama, A Rainbow from Minnie's Boys gave Barr the chance to pay tribute to his mum Marie in the audience. Summoning her on stage (with an introduction of questionable chivalry, that if he ever went into drag, his mum is what he'd look like) the love between son and mother was a celebration of inspirational tenderness. Whilst some may call the moment cheesy, it's fondness and above all, sincerity was undoubted. Maintaining his commitment to the importance of family, he dedicated John Bucchino's Grateful to his goddaughter (Russell's child) before his pre-encore closer of Self Portrait from Ed Kleban's A Class Act. Barr had given an acclaimed performance as Kleban in that show, earlier this year and his tender rendition of a number that speaks of incredible sadness and realisation made for another sparkling moment.

Judging the man by his company, Barr's packed audience were a blend of family, friends and industry legends. In town for one night only, this show demands an early reprise. John Barr's Self Portrait is a masterpiece.

Janie Dee - Satin Doll Cabaret

Crazy Coqs, London

****





Janie Dee in cabaret

The lights dim in the art deco Crazy Coqs, and slinking her way through the cabaret tables of the venue, Janie Dee eases into Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll, a song title also used to headline her week’s residency at Brasserie Zedel's wonderful basement setting.

Barely 72 hours out of her celebrated stint as the star turn in Leicester’s Curve Theatre production of Jerry Herman’s Hello, Dolly! , Miss Dee loses the brash New York/Yonkers accent that is one of the defining components of the outstanding Dolly Levi that she delivered, adopting instead a seductively smooth sound for a collection of predominantly American numbers. Acknowledging the great chanteuses, her delivery of Diana Ross' Touch Me In The Morning was a wonderfully heartfelt interpretation of that plaintive song whilst her take on Minelli’s There Goes The Ball Game early in her set was cute and enchanting.

Dressed in a strapless ballgown, fishnets, with eyes sparkling throughout and striking red heels that would grace a grown up Dorothy Gale, Miss Dee looks as good as she sounds. Later, in the Dreamgirls song, I Am Changing, Dee goes on to do precisely that, stripping down to her basque and re-dressing as a gamine coquette, complete with cocked hat and bow tie draped around her neck and all whilst performing the number with her allure, confidence and poise, perfect throughout.

Dee’s delivery of reflective anecdotes is warm and sincere, drawing the audience into some brief intimate recollections, making a thoroughly professional performance incredibly up-close and personal too. There is clearly a sound understanding between the singer and Ben Atkinson, her youthful but talented pianist that reflects a well drilled rehearsal routine, itself a fortunate spin off of his having been her musical director at Leicester.

The highlight (for this reviewer at least, though of course everyone will have their own favourite) was her inclusion of Misty. Scaling the complex chords and melodies of Errol Garner’s classic with an apparently effortless mastery, it was a spine-tingling privilege to hear the song given such a fine interpretation. Closing her set with a nod to Dolly, and the appropriately selected So Long Dearie, Dee's accomplished delivery was that of a relaxed and skilled performer who knows a song inside out. Here for 5 nights only, Dee’s Satin Doll routine is an evening of classy cabaret from one of this country’s finest artistes.

In cabaret until Saturday 26th January 2013

My profile of Janie Dee can be found here.

Hello, Dolly! at the Leicester Curve, review can be found here.

Hello, Dolly! - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

*****

Book by Michael Stewart

Music & lyrics by Jerry Herman

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Janie Dee is Dolly Levi

In a grand show, whose qualities are built entirely upon a stunning company performance, the Curve’s production of Hello, Dolly! is a faultless piece of musical theatre.

Jerry Herman’s Broadway hit, later starring Barbra Streisand in the 1969 movie, tells of the preposterous antics of penniless widowed matchmaker Dolly Levi and her schemes to ultimately net the wealthy Yonkers grain merchant, Horace Vandergelder for herself. Levi can produce business cards that proclaim her an expert in just about everything and Michael Stewart’s book, itself based on Thornton Wilder’s play The Matchmaker, has Dolly weave what can only be described as a Ponzi scheme of romantic trickery and duplicity. Integral to the story’s delightfully ridiculous twists and turns are Levi’s client, the also widowed milliner Irene Molloy and Vandergelder’s much put upon impoverished clerks, Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, excited to be making a trip to New York City with the sole aim of kissing a girl.

Janie Dee’s Dolly is a woman “who likes to know everything that’s going on” and her performance brims with as much talent as her character has chutzpah. Popping up from the middle of the stalls, her opening number I Put My Hand In sets the tone for both performance and show. Her eyes twinkle throughout and her lead of the company in the spectacular act one closer, Before The Parade Passes By, has such vitality that the song almost deserves several further verses and it is a disappointment when that number draws to a close. Act two sees her famous arrival at the Hermonia Gardens restaurant to the show’s title number and Dee, together with the ensemble’s waiters does not disappoint. She takes a Broadway classic that everybody knows and makes it her own.

Dale Rapley’s Vandergelder is a delightfully maturing curmudgeon, his song It Takes A Woman, a glorious celebration of male chauvinism. Rapley’s presence adds a delicious credibility to his bluster as through the show and much as he resists, Levi slowly reels him in.

West End star Michael Xavier is the hapless Hackl. Michael Crawford set the bar for this role in the movie and Xavier, with his movement and vocals vaults it effortlessly. Jason Denton’s Tucker provides the perfect foil to Hackl’s mania.

As Irene Molloy, Laura Pitt-Pulford shines. Already an accomplished off-West End leading actress, her Molloy has an infectious charm and her talent adds further glitter to the show’s Broadway sparkle. Ribbons Down My Back, sung as she yearns for a suitor, is arguably one of the most heartfelt yet emotionally lightly-touched numbers ever written for the stage and Pitt-Pulford catches its fragile complexity perfectly.

Paul Kerryson directs with perception and flourish using the massive Curve proscenium to its full. The shows images are grand and he enhances the red white and blue tickertape climax to act one with the inspired addition of local marching bands to the 14^th Street parade, The Scout and Guide Bands of Leicestershire on stage for this review.

David Needham’s choreography is breathtaking. The act two Waiter’s Gallop, clearly drilled into the cast with pinpoint precision, sees dancers cartwheel through mid-air.  On stage throughout, Ben Atkinson’s eight piece band provides a big-band sound that, from the opening refrain, transports the production from England’s East Midlands to America’s East Coast.  The set design by Sara Perks ingeniously employs projections and simple mechanisms (including an inspired revolving staircase) to portray the various New York city and railroad locations, whilst her costume work is meticulous.

With regional revivals currently achieving commercial success in the West End, Curve should plan to send this show south as soon as opportunities permit. It’s a confirmed Christmas cracker!

My profile of Janie Dee can be found here

Runs until 19 January 2012

Release Me - Barbra Streisand - CD review

****

Produced by Barbra Streisand and Jay Lander

Release Me is a collection of songs from Barbra Streisand, previously un-released and amassed over the remarkable six decades of her career and none of which have been heard before. The singer’s archives contain her original master tapes dating back to 1962, and it is from these authentically aged recordings that the album has been compiled.

The oldest song in the selection Lost in Wonderland is a lilting bossa nova penned by Antonio Jobim who several years earlier had written the global hit The Girl from Ipanema. Streisand admired Jobim’s work, but in the shadow of the Ipanema classic, deliberately wanted to explore a lesser-known title. The resulting youthful treatment of the Brazilian sound is a delight, her voice seductively snaking around the South American rhythm.

From the oldest to the most recent, If Its Meant To Be is the freshest of the album’s recordings. Written by Brian Byrne with Alan and Marilyn Bergman, it was originally intended for Streisand’s 2011 CD release What Matters Most, but failed to make the final tracklist. Listening to this song, recorded when the singer was approaching 70 and contrasting it with her sound from nearly 50 years earlier, one can truly gauge the vocal stature of the woman. Whilst the timbre of her voice may have matured with the years, her ability to sweetly hit the perfect note and hold it with measured strength for as long as the song demands has not faltered.

A Streisand album would not be complete without a generous dollop of moist eyed schmaltz and Mother and Child, albeit an acoustic delight from 1973, is a touching song that perhaps a little mawkishly grabs the heartstrings.

Streisand includes With One More Look At You from the movie her 1970s movie A Star is Born. The wonderfully detailed liner notes, prepared by Jay Lander, Release Me’s co-producer, state that the film and its soundtrack album featured the version of the song that was  performed live on camera as the picture was shot and that the recording included on the album is therefore the first stand-alone studio recording of the song to be distributed. Streisand taped the number at the time of the films release and listening to it today brings a fresh re-interpretation of memories of the movie, but with the familiar sound of a younger Streisand voice providing one more look , albeit from a slightly different perspective, at one of her classics.

It is no surprise that the album’s release is shrewdly timed with the festive season approaching, however whether one is a devotee of the diva, or simply curious to hear one of the finest singers of recent years, this collection of songs demands to be purchased. Streisand’s reputation is deservedly that of a living legend and this album proves why.

Here Comes The Sun - CD Review

*****

Here Comes The Sun is Louise Dearman’s second solo album. Where her first offering was a showcase of musical theatre, this album is a bold journey into the territory of strong R&B and soul numbers that span five decades.  

The album’s title track is George Harrison’s composition , first recorded on The Beatles Abbey Road LP. Where the original is of course a word class performance in acoustic guitar, Dearman boldly replaces that famous intro with piano and vocals, and within just a few bars makes the statement that for this CD she is taking classic numbers and recording them on her terms and with her interpretation. Vocally, she mixes fineness of pitch with powerful strength and clarity. Whilst Harrison purists may see her version of this number as sacrilegious, it has a beauty and it works.

Squander, the album’s second track, is a delightful surprise. Dearman takes this Skunk Anansie signature tune and reworks it, producing a soulful melody that it is intoxicating to listen to. The suggestion of covering this song on the album was truly visionary .  A soulful Time After Time proves to be another classic song, beautifully re-imagined by Dearman into a recording that whilst echoing aspects of Cindy Lauper’s original, invigorates the melody into a performance that is at once familiar yet also refreshingly new.

The strength and range of Dearman’s voice is magnificently displayed in different numbers on the album. With Gravity, her cover of Sara Bareilles’ original evokes the legendary chanteuses of recent years, and suggests that she has the potential to match Celine Dion or Barbara Streisand, such is the spine-tingling effect of her voice. The performances of See The Day, and also This House, similarly serve to emphasise the power that Dearman can deploy to not only tame and master a big song, but also to show how she can coax the arrangements into moments of sheer vocal magnificence.

Dearman’s version of One Day I’ll Fly Away , whilst again a beautiful and striking performance, is, being critical, perhaps the only number on the album that is outshone by the original . Randy Crawford’s unique timbre, and the skillfully arranged strings accompaniment from 30 years ago are acknowledged, but not quite matched, in this recording.

This collection of songs is predominantly outstanding. If Louise Dearman’s first album acknowledged the musical theatre background that she has come from,  Here Comes The Sun, produced by Ben Robbins, is a definite and stunning statement from the singer of where she wants to go to. Only last week, Miss Dearman tweeted that she wanted to be cast “in a play”. This album, following hard on the heels of her impressive,  nearly two-year, stint in Glinda’s bubble in the West End smash Wicked, suggests that the performing world should be her oyster. Here Comes The Sun is a perfect addition to any Soul or R&B collection.

Louise Dearman