Celebrating Sondheim

USER (10Oct05): As a life long Stephen Sondheim fan, and a greta supporter of student theatre, I went along to the Bloomsbury expecting a good night. I wasn't too disappointed! The problem all young theatre companies have when performing Sondheim is so much of Sondheim's work has to be sung by people who have lived...and very often hearing a 18 year old singing the Ladies Who Lunch, or Send In The Clowns can be just too grating for even the most ardent Sondheim enthusiast. This concert tackled that head on, taking songs out of context and for the first time in my memory, exploring themes that perhaps even the most knowledgeable Sondheim fans wouldn't have imagined. The night was compered by Ray Rackham, Nadira Hasim and Bridget Miller. Unfortunately their style owed more to lecture halls than theatre (well, they are students after all) but this didn't detract from what was very interesting snippets of information about the great composer. The compere sections were interrupted by fantastic comedic sequences including Rackham and the stereotypical 'visiting American tourist' played brilliantly by the Chicago based Steve Feder. Rackham and Feder could have a comedy career ahead of them... So onto the songs. The concert was mainly a collection of Sondheim standards and best knowns, perhaps done consciously to give a more 'ear pleasing' evening to those who are unfamiliar with the content of Sondheim's back catalogue. A beautiful rendition of Barcelona by Andres Refeg and Claire Randall opened the first act, closely followed by a very funny Little Things by Rick Hornbeck and Shelley Healey (both of whom really played up the lyrical comedy of the number). The songs came thick and fast in the first act and covered all of Sondheim's career from West Side Story to his most recent piece Passion. Lucy Britner's Loving You was delivered to perfection. The second act was more structured, focussing in my opinion too much on Sondheim's opinion of marriage. However, some really good performances. Ray Rackham and Sophie Train became the warring couple for the evening in both Could I Leave You (sung brilliantly by Rackham who once again showed his comic flair) and We're Gonna Be Alright (with the revised lyrics used in Side BY Side BY Sondheim). Andrea Wales managed to nail Sondheim's most lyrically challenging Getting Married Today, with help from Mark Spry and Aoife Nally, which brings me onto the highlights. Aoife Nally and Steve Feder, perhaps the only two non-Brits in the cast showed everyone how Sondheim should be sung. Steve Feder sang Losing My Mind in a completely honest, poignant and upsetting way. He literally lost his mind! A fantastic interpretation of such a well known song, as fresh as when Dorothy COllins sang it in the 1970s. Amazing. Then Aoife Nally closed the show with what has to be one of the best renditions of I'm Still Here I've ever heard... She tore the house down with this song that is originally sung by a women well into her twilight years, charting the many mishaps along a long and varied career in this business we call show. Ms Nally has to be on the way to a fantasic career by now, the girls got style and can belt like Ethel Merman. So, a great night out that completely changed my opinion of young people singing Sondheim. Long may this new tradition continue!