Review – Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, Sondheim Theatre, London, 3rd May 2022

Posted on May 4, 2022 by therealchrisparkle

Stephen Sondheim may have left this earth last November, but once you let him into your heart and your life, he never goes away. My first exposure to his work was when I got to see Side by Side by Sondheim at Wyndham’s Theatre in April 1977. Even though I was only 17 years and 1 day old, I was blown away by his wit and insight – let alone those melodies. When I first started seeing the young Miss Duncansby, I recorded the double album onto cassette for her (it’s something we used to do in those days, ask your parents) and I reckon that shared admiration for the great man went some way towards sealing our relationship.

T S Eliot’s Prufrock measured out his life by coffee spoons. Mrs Chrisparkle and I have measured out our years with Sondheim lyrics – and I bet we’re not alone. Rarely a day goes by when one of life’s situations isn’t best expressed by a line from one of his songs. And there were plenty of those brilliant lines on offer in Tuesday night’s Sondheim’s Old Friends gala at the appropriately renamed Sondheim Theatre (normally I dislike the practice of renaming theatres, but in this case I’ll make an exception). Ostensibly it was in aid of the Stephen Sondheim Foundation; in essence it was an excuse for some of the world’s best Sondheim practitioners to come together for one huge celebration of his output.

It’s so easy to go over the top with one’s appreciation of a great show, and words like amazing and incredible get bandied about in descriptions when what you really mean is very good, but it doesn’t sound exciting enough. However, I genuinely can’t think of the right superlatives to describe this show. It was sublime, it was thrilling, it was a constant source of delight. Not only that, it was way, way more slick than I had expected; a veritable gaudete of all the emotions that his works convey. Nothing that’s grim, nothing that’s Greek; just pure enjoyment from start to finish.

Devised and produced by Cameron Mackintosh, staged by Matthew Bourne and Maria Friedman, and choreographed by Stephen Mear; adding Sondheim’s songs to that mix, it was always going to be outstanding. The first thing that hit you was how tremendous Alfonso Casado Trigo’s 26 piece orchestra was – a classy, rich, full-bodied sound that blazed into every nook and cranny of the theatre. The programme gave us the running order of songs – forty in all – but not who would be performing them, so there was a continuous buzz about who to expect on stage next. Some of the combinations of song and singer were predictable; others were a delightful revelation.

Some of the stars had roars of welcome from the moment they set foot on the stage. Julia McKenzie stopped the show within a second or two of its starting; still an amazing voice, still a wonderfully subtle sense of humour. Red Riding Hood turned around to reveal she was Bernadette Peters – cue a lengthy appreciation. A light shone on Dame Judi Dench and she didn’t get the chance to start singing for ages, waiting for the cheering to die down. I can’t describe each of these forty performances, although each stands out as a beacon of brilliance; I can only share with you some of my personal favourites.

Rob Brydon and Haydn Gwynne gave us The Little Things You Do Together with an immaculate mix of comedy and musicality. Anna-Jane Casey, Janie Dee and Josefina Gabrielle were a perfect goofy trio for You Could Drive a Person Crazy. Bernadette Peters delivered a spine-tingling Children Will Listen. Janie Dee, Julian Ovenden, Michael D Xavier and the West End All Stars showed what a brilliantly clever multi-layered piece A Weekend in The Country is. There were sobs all over the house for Judi Dench’s heart-wrenching Send in the Clowns. Michael Ball and Maria Friedman mined all the comedy out of The Worst Pies in London and A Little Priest. Haydn Gwynne took our breath away with The Ladies Who Lunch.

After the interval, Julia McKenzie, Gary Wilmot, Rosalie Craig and many more delivered a hilarious version of Broadway Baby where competitive auditionees try to outdo each other. Sian Phillips unexpectedly joined Rob Brydon, Damien Lewis and Julian Ovenden for the last verse of Everybody Ought to Have a Maid. Petula Clark gave us a resilient and determined I’m Still Here (including a brilliant throwaway line at one of the song’s more obscure references – “Google it!”) Michael Ball’s deliciously vindictive Could I Leave You? Janie Dee’s cutely innocent The Boy From… Bernadette Peters’ awe-inspiring Losing My Mind. Imelda Staunton’s legendary outstanding Everything’s Coming Up Roses. And so very much more…

The audience was as star-studded as the cast, but I only witnessed one truly stagey moment. On my way to the bar at the interval, I was caught between Cameron Mackintosh on my left and Christopher Biggins, resplendent in white scarf, on my right; Mr B called out to Mr M Darling it’s just marvellous, and Mr M beamed a suitably chuffed smile in response. But he was absolutely right! It was indeed marvellous. I can’t see how they could ever recreate this experience again in the same way, but the montage of songs worked brilliantly, and could pack a West End theatre every night as a revue in its own right.

I’m still buzzing from it all; the thrill of that experience will take a long time to calm down. Hopefully the relay into the Prince Edward Theatre will also be used as a recording for TV broadcast, because this is a celebration that should be relived for many years. That’s it. I’m out of superlatives!

Five Alive Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Anyone Can Whistle – Jay Records 2020 CD First Complete Recording

Posted on November 23, 2020 by therealchrisparkle

In these theatre-starved times, every so often a little spark of light appears to remind us of what we’ve been missing since March. December 4^th sees the official release of the first complete recording of Stephen Sondheim’s 1964 flop Anyone Can Whistle, timed to celebrate the great man’s 90^th birthday. Recorded in 1997, this surreal, fantasy musical explores what can happen when a once-great American local community decides to mire itself in fake news, pretend miracles and corrupt leadership. Incidentally, in 1964, Donald Trump was a pukey youth of 18, medically deferred for military duty, and in 1997, he was a wrestling promoter married to Marla Maples. Can’t think why I’ve mentioned that.

Before getting hold of this (fantastic) 2 CD set and doing a spot of reading around, my knowledge of the show was pretty limited. I knew the three songs that appear in the delightful cabaret show Side by Side by Sondheim, the fact that it was Sondheim’s second attempt to write both music and lyrics to a show, and that it ran for a stupendous twelve previews and nine performances. Was it simply an awful show? A terrible production, perhaps? With a cast led by Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury, you wouldn’t have thought so, although there were tales of unhappiness within the cast, poor reviews in the try-outs, plus the fact that none of the three leads had been in a musical before. Alternatively, you might be tempted to think of it as one of those way ahead of its time shows; however, the presence of two extended ballet scenes – straight outta Oklahoma – together with its very traditional three Act structure, suggests otherwise. The main problem is that there was nothing in the show for the 1964 audience to latch on to and recognise; no one with whom you would choose to identify. Today, in the almost post-Trump era, you can appreciate the satire of a grotesque leader who spins lies, and a populace desperate to believe in miracles. So, the show is both behind the times and ahead of the times – but strangely not of the times themselves. 1964 also gave us Funny Girl (Barbra Streisand was originally a possibility for the role of Cora but chose Fanny Brice instead); it gave us Hello Dolly and Fiddler on the Roof, massive crowd-pleasers one and all, with big showtunes or haunting melodies. Anyone Can Whistle – maybe because of the challenging nature of its themes and musical content – just faded away. Until now!

Like 99.99% (recurring) of the world’s population, I’ve never seen a production of this show, but the release of this new 2 CD set gives you all the excitement and vibe of being about to witness an incredibly significant First Night – and all from the comfort of your headphones. Maria Friedman, Julia McKenzie and John Barrowman lead the cast in this sensational audio experience, with the late Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book, featuring as The Narrator. Along with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of John Owen Edwards, a glimpse down the cast list is like tripping back in time 25 years. As well as the leads, the names of musical theatre stalwarts like Matt Zimmerman, Stuart Pendred, Danielle Carson, Lori Haley Fox and Shezwae Powell pepper the cast, and the result is an incredibly rewarding, musically rich experience, full of surprises.

If, like me, you come to the show fresh, from a position of ignorance, you’ll be completely stunned by what confronts you. You think you might know how a Sondheim musical can capture your heart, or your imagination, or your inner fears and concerns; but not this time. Mayoress Cora promotes a faked miracle so that her miserable, bankrupt town can become a tourist Mecca – how that plays out forms one of the two dramatic threads. The other is the rather insensitive notion of the Cookie Jar, the name given to a sanatorium for nonconformists (basically, an asylum); how the inmates (the cookies) are released into the community, with the result that no one can tell who is nonconformist and who isn’t. Whilst on the surface, the nonconformists are treated as though they are mentally ill, you could extend their significance to include any other section of the community who doesn’t abide by society’s norms. This is not comfortable subject material!

As you listen to the music unfold the story, at times you have to pinch yourself to believe quite what you’re hearing; and it’s a challenge to the listener who hasn’t seen the show to imagine it progressing on the stage of your mind’s eye. The chaotic lunacy of some parts of the show put me in mind strongly of the Marat/Sade, Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw, and Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist – even though Anyone Can Whistle predates these latter two. At the end of the first Act the cast round on the audience and mock them – prescient of Peter Handke’s Offending the Audience in some respects. Cora’s staccato lines in The Cookie Chase reminded me strongly of Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd. Additionally, the wonderful showtune-style orchestrations set up a vivid juxtaposition with the savage weirdness of some of the content. The three songs I already knew – Anyone Can Whistle, There Won’t be Trumpets and Everybody Says Don’t – all stand out, but, on a first listen, I was also really impressed by A Parade in Town, I’ve Got You to Lean On, and the reprise of Anyone Can Whistle as part of See What it Gets You which takes its meaning on to another level.

This is a fascinating and vital recording, and essential for any Sondheim fan, wanting to piece together all parts of the jigsaw puzzle that make up his career. Julia McKenzie is in full pantomime-villain form as the awful Cora; needy, whining, corrupt and totally transparent about it. She affects that tough, East-side hectoring voice that blasts her way through the big numbers and is in perfect contrast to the intimate but repressed characterisation of Nurse Fay Apple by Maria Friedman; what those two performers don’t know about interpreting Sondheim’s work isn’t worth knowing. John Barrowman is in fine voice as the smart-talking, charismatic, and credible Hapgood, who is mistaken as the new assistant at the Cookie Jar. This is going to require a lot of re-playing in order to get to the heart of this surreal, allegorical show – and I know it’s going to be thoroughly worth it!