There are few words I can use to express how superb Tuesday night's gala Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends - a Celebration truly was. Gobsmacking! Awesome! Stunning! - even these don't do it justice.
I mean - at what other occasion were we ever likely to see Dame Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie, Dame Siân Phillips, Petula Clark, Michael Ball, Damien Lewis, Imelda Staunton, Maria Friedman, Bernadette Peters, Jenna Russell, Rosalie Craig, Julian Ovenden, Janie Dee, Rob Brydon, Haydn Gwynne, Bonnie Langford, Daniel Evans, Michael Xavier, Charlie Stemp, Gary Wilmot, Clive Rowe, Anna-Jane Casey, Josefina Gabrielle, Jon Robyns, Helena Bonham-Carter and so many more top-class performers gathered on stage in the same show at the same time?!
Sondheim was adored by the theatrical community (understandably), and the love expressed by every performer, as his extensive back-catalogue was comprehensively explored, flowed from the stage. [Yes, I know we were actually only watching it on a screen, but that screen was so huge, the quality so immaculate, and in the glittering surroundings of the Art Deco Prince Edward Theatre, disbelief was well-and-truly suspended!]
Produced (and hosted) by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, with Maria Friedman directing alongside Matthew Bourne and choreographer Stephen Mear, we had a little bit of everything - and more - here. The evening opened with a heartfelt introduction from Sir Cameron, followed swiftly by the remarkable Daniel Evans with Sunday in the Park With George, before a "national treasure" took to the stage, to thunderous applause - arch-Sondheimite Julia McKenzie, making her first stage appearance in 24 years, aged 81, with the opening bars of Side By Side (joined in turn by Ashley Campbell, Rosalie Craig, Josefina Gabrielle, Amy Griffiths, Bradley Jaden and Jenna Russell). Rather than do it myself, I'll leave it to the amazingly comprehensive Theatremonkey to list the rest in his/her own estimable manner:
[carting Sir Cameron off the stage]
...[next was] Comedy Tonight with Clive Rowe, Gary Wilmot, the West End All Stars (the evening's hugely talented ensemble) and one Rob Brydon, who went on to admit that with Haydn Gwynne The Little Things You Do Together make marriage a joy. The real joy being Gwynne’s vocal and Brydon’s running joke about being too short for his stool.Classic Sondheim ladies’ trio You Could Drive a Person Crazy had Anna-Jane Casey, Janie Dee and Josefina Gabrielle in a hilariously well-choreographed sequence and stunning outfits.
The mood changed a little as Clive Rowe gave a heart-wrenching Live Alone and Like It before Michael Ball segued into Loving You from Passion and produced perfect stillness.
Holly-Anne Hull channelled her inner “Vicar of Dibley” (incidentally, Dawn French was in the audience) to marry reluctant Anna-Jane Casey to Jon Robyns, Casey managing with ease the amazingly fast patter of Getting Married Today.
As the wedding guests pulled out lanterns, the West End All Stars took us Into The Woods, Julian Ovenden and Michael D. Xavier sharing their Agony over life and ladies, as Red Riding Hood lurked.
Throwing back her hood, the show stopped for the first time as the audience acknowledged Bernadette Peters, as she herself acknowledged I Know Things Now. Damian Lewis did too - Hello Little Girl made even more lascivious by his wolf ears and delightful tail. Peters then pulled a diamond with Children Will Listen...
Out of the woods, time for A Weekend in the Country led off by maid Desmonda Cathabel ... She more than held her own as Janie Dee, Rob Houchen, Holly-Anne Hull, Julian Ovenden, Michael D. Xavier and the West End All Stars plotted a strategy to bring down their hostess with fun in the process.
Then a definitive moment. Dame Judi Dench. Send In The Clowns. Show stopped; standing ovation, which would have gone on longer had there not been so much more to get through. Nothing more to add.
Lightening or darkening the tone, depending on your taste for slick melodrama, good use was made of the Les Misérables slums, re-purposed as Fleet Street for a visit to Sweeney Todd. Michael Ball and a gaggle of West End All Stars townsfolk gave us the background The Ballad of Sweeney Todd before Maria Friedman told of Mrs Lovett’s catering woes in The Worst Pies in London (spit into her apron, dear, wise advice).
My Friends suggested how Mr Ball might take revenge, Pretty Women was Jeremy Secomb’s last duet before Maria Friedman suggested a cunning plan to recycle him and Mr Ball finally got it, and A Little Priest found the sweetest spot of humour as well as satire as only Sondheim can do.
Sticking firmly to the liquid, Haydn Gwynne came up from the stalls to celebrate The Ladies Who Lunch in style before Daniel Evans, Bernadette Peters and the West End All Stars brought a harmonious curtain down on the first half with a heartfelt Sunday.Such was the atmosphere, it was only by taking the auditorium lights down to half that the audience were persuaded to re-take their seats instead of enthusing in the aisle and let the second half begin with the Entr’acte Overture from Merrily We Roll Along.
And roll in they did, the New York street gangs, to give us a quintet from West Side Story. Shan Ako, Christine Allado, Lous Gaunt, Rob Houchen and students from the Royal Academy Musical Theatre Company and Mountview – both schools should probably consult police immediately to deal with the issue before the rabble get out of hand.
Speaking of rabble, the hotly contested Broadway Baby went from the Hey, Mr Producer! routine of Gary Wilmot as frustrated audition pianist dealing with Julia McKenzie to a battle for supremacy between Rosalie Craig, Maria Friedman, Josefina Gabrielle, Amy Griffiths, Haydn Gwynne, Bonnie Langford, Bernadette Peters, Jenna Russell and Helena Bonham Carter - the last swooping in at the last minute to take it. Standing ovation as the final tableau, what else could we do?With all those ladies around, Roman sexism arrived as Rob Brydon, Damien Lewis and Julian Ovenden agreed that Everybody Ought to Have a Maid - and Sian Phillips set them right.
Burlesque reminded us that You Gotta Get A Gimmick and Anna-Jane Casey, Bernadette Peters and Bonnie Langford had theirs – Langford’s eye-watering end to the song [the splits] drawing more gasps than even Casey’s electric dress or Peters' trumpet....from Follies, Waiting For The Girls Upstairs was given proper nostalgia by Ashley Campbell, Rob Houchen and Bradley Jaden, Charlie Stemp summing it up: "Weren’t we chuckle-heads then?"
The Girl arrived - Petula Clark with I’m Still Here. One of the very best versions of the song ... a true theatre survivor giving us autobiography and growing through adversity to end on a note of total victory, and another standing ovation until she left the stage.
Michael Ball then asked Could I Leave You? and had the audience stunned into silence with his final answer to us, guess... he certainly had us doing so.One-man Vaudevillian Gary Wilmot gave us Buddy’s Blues complete with counterpoint from a dim but devoted lover, well, until the next man produced furs. Another show-stopper in an evening full of them.
Against a beach back-projection, The Boy From.... by Janie Dee demonstrated Sondheim’s flair for pastiche, even of popular music.
The tone turned black as Bernadette Peters revealed she was Losing My Mind. Another perfection, another standing ovation continued until the lady had entered the wings.
Just when the evening couldn’t yield any more wonders, Imelda Staunton appeared, with her career high Everything’s Coming Up Roses, and the audience came to its collective feet once more.A reminder of the Andrew Lloyd-Webber / Stephen Sondheim duet from Hey, Mr Producer provided a video breathing space and a little fond chuckling.
Not A Day Goes By when we who love musical theatre don’t miss Stephen Sondheim. To a backdrop of changing projected photographs of his life and career, Julia McKenzie, Michael Ball, Rosalie Craig, Maria Friedman, Bernadette Peters, Jenna Russell and the West End All Stars gathered beneath the screen to celebrate, remember and mark.
Michael Ball, Rob Brydon, Rosalie Craig, Haydn Gwynne, Bradley Jaden, Bonnie Langford, Julian Ovenden, Jon Robyns, Jenna Russell, Jeremy Secomb, Michael D. Xavier and the West End All Stars then reminded us of the importance of Being Alive to bring the full company and Sir Cameron Mackintosh onto the stage for Old Friends and Side By Side.The final closure came from the young, as a truly stunning troupe of new West End performers of the future filled the side aisles in front of the proscenium, spilling up and onto the stage either side of the rest of the cast to deliver a pure gold Our Time.
Phew!
There were just so many highlights for us, including: Michael Ball's version of Could I Leave You? with a gay nod and a wink in its gender-bending that echoed the much earlier [and at the time - 1976 - even more shocking] rendition by David Kernan [in the original
Side By Side by Sondheim, which also starred the aforementioned Miss McKenzie]; Dame Sian's mischievous wink; Our Pet singing a song that might have been made for her now she is 89; the brilliantly "Stritch-esque" Ladies Who Lunch in which Miss Gwynne showed [the overrated, in our opinion] Patti Lupone how this song should be done, Dame Judi's gut-wrenching-yet-perfect vocals; and (of course) the simply faboo Ms Peters. Truth be told, it's hard to pick, really.
Have I mentioned - we enjoyed it?
It was one of the very best things I have ever seen on stage in my life!
