What's to discuss, old friends? Here's to us!

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?

Old Friends - Stephen Sondheim: a celebration gala concert finale

It was one of the very best things I have ever seen on stage in my life!

Nobody Does It Like Them

It was Friday Night is Music Night on Wednesday night! Confusing though that sounds, Madam Arcati and I were overjoyed once again to get tickets in the BBC draw to be in the audience for a recording of Radio 2's longest-running music show (and, indeed the world's longest-running orchestral music programme on radio) - and all of it in celebration of the composer of many a fave choon here at Dolores Delargo Towers - Mr Cy Coleman!

As I said in my recent blog for the man's birthday, Cy "wrote a whole raft of our favourites from the Great American Songbook - not only those in one of my fave musicals 'Sweet Charity'". His music was beloved of legends such as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr, Shirley Bassey and Tony Bennett, and he won five Tony Awards, two Grammys and three Emmys. No wonder the Beeb finds him worth celebrating.

And what a celebration!

In the exemplary company of the BBC Concert Orchestra (conducted by Mike Reed), and hosted by long-serving TV hostess (and former "action woman") Anneka Rice, the evening covered all aspects of Mr Coleman's career, from his time as a jobbing composer mainly working with lyricist Carolyn Leigh out of the legendary Brill Building, to notable Broadway success with writers such as Dorothy Fields, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, to his later success with Barnum and City of Angels. The orchestra, and chorus Capital Voices, indeed had great fun romping through some of his "big music" numbers, not least Come Follow The Band, Hey, Look Me Over, Join the Circus, Big Spender and The Rhythm Of Life.



The lead singers included the gorgeous Michael Xavier (who we have seen on stage many times - as "Miss Great Plains" in the faboo drag-queen-talent-competition-musical Pageant at The Vaudeville Theatre in 2000; in 2008 playing Rock Hudson in Rock at the Oval House Theatre; at the Friday Night is Music Night West Side Story special in 2007; and as "The Wolf / Cinderella's Prince" in 2010 in Into The Woods at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre) who sang some splendid solos - including Sinatra's favourite Cy Coleman tune, Witchcraft and the standard It's Not Where You Start (It's Where You Finish) - as well as providing a remarkably harmonic backbone to the ensemble numbers.

Here he is in that aforementioned Into The Woods production, duetting with Simon Thomas on Agony:

Into the Woods: Agony

Mr Xavier also duetted with the other male lead on Wednesday evening Mr Tam Mutu (Les Misérables; Love Never Dies; Dr Zhivago) on You're Nothing Without Me (from City of Angels) - Mr Mutu's "showstopper", however, was his brilliant The Best Is Yet To Come.

Miss Siobhan Dillon, a contender on the reality show How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? and West End starlet [and real-life girlfriend of Mr Mutu, as Miss Rice revealed] really let loose on the Shirley MacLaine numbers If My Friends Could See Me Now and I'm a Brass Band, as well as a rather fab version of Lost and Found (from City of Angels; lyrics by David Zippel: "If you're not celibate, we could raise hell a bit"). She also did a rather touching duet with Mr Mutu on The Colours of My Life (from Barnum), as well as with Mr Xavier on I Like Your Style from the same show.

Swansea's finest Miss Ria Jones, however, got all the campest showbiz numbers - as she should do, being the understudy who triumphally stole the show in Sunset Boulevard when leading lady Glenn Close went off sick [in fact Ria created the role way back in 1991]; she also starred in Evita, Chess, Les Mis and Victor/Victoria [and she is the sister of famed drag queen Ceri Dupree] - such as Nobody Does It Like Me, Hey, Look Me Over, Big Spender and You Can Always Count On Me (again from City of Angels), as well as the lovely love song (made famous by Blossom Dearie) I Walk A Little Faster.

Here's a mere snippet of Miss Jones' talents:

Ria Jones - As If We Never Said Goodbye

In its entirety - "re-takes" and all - this was another wonderful night out at the glorious Hackney Empire, which we enjoyed immensely. I wonder when it will be broadcast?

Friday Night is Music Night on the BBC.

He's a very nice Prince...

We went to see the marvellous production of Sondheim's Into The Woods at the Open Air Theatre at Regent's Park tonight!

Okay, it rained a bit while we were having our picnic before the show. Okay, the seats were a bit damp, and the wind was whipping around us... But the sun shone for the performance - and it was a magnificently enjoyable evening, indeed!

No time for a proper review, unfortunately (suffice to say it was utterly brilliant), and videos of the show so far, but at least we can indulge in the rehearsals...

Into the Woods rehearsals #1

Into the Woods rehearsals #2

Normal service will be resumed when we get back from Amsterdam on Monday evening!!

Between a Rock and a hard place...

"It's a gay Pygmalion. My character turns this gasoline attendant into the highest paid movie star on the planet. He takes a callow youth and turns him into Rock Hudson, who was the perfect, ideal man - or so everyone thought."

What a great evening's entertainment Rock turned out to be!

This was not only a rather good play by Tim Fountain about the Machiavellian world of 50s Hollywood - personified in the bravura performance of Bette Bourne as Roy Willson, agent to the stars and supreme influence over the young Rock Hudson, manipulating the closeted gay hick into the macho "straight" star he became - but also a small-theatre extravaganza.

Advertised as a "red carpet event" we all went togged up, to be greeted with a lovely man in a sari, several queens with glitter in their hair, a six-foot drag queen, cute boys with braces - and Fenella Fielding!

Fuelled with complimentary glasses of Kir Royale and copious trays of mini cup-cakes, courtesy of the management of the Oval House Theatre, we and the rest of the audience (including Paul Burston, David McAlmont and other glit-lit-erati of the gay world) adored the play, Bette, and the sexy Michael Xavier (as Rock) in a frequent state of undress...

But it was the epilogue to the evening that provided the most fascinating entertainment.



Inducting Bette Bourne into the "House of Homosexual Culture Hall of Fame", Rupert Smith encouraged Bette to share with us some anecdotes of his extraordinary life - friendships with Ian McKellan and Quentin Crisp, his life in a drag commune ("the second floor was the make-up room - 270 shades of nail varnish"), and as founder of the infamous Bloolips drag theatre troupe. His recollections of a world long gone, of people who really made a difference during the time of the Gay Liberation Front right though to the tabloid-hate-filled AIDS era, provided a magical end to a magical evening!

The making of "Rock" - part 1

Read the review in the Evening Standard