A two-part online concert recorded in isolation / lockdown by final year students on the MA Musical Theatre course at The Arden School Of Theatre in Manchester. The concert, cleverly called 'The COLEction' celebrated two of American Musical Theatre's greatest names. In the first half it was the music of Cole Porter, and the second, Cy Coleman.
The students were self recorded via their computers or mobiles in their own homes and had piano backing tracks to sing along to. Obviously the sound quality of such a concert is not going to be optimal (ditto lighting, costuming etc), and singing in an empty room with no atmosphere is absolutely not the easiest thing to do. I take my hat off to all of them for being able to cope with such things seemingly so easily.
For each song the students had been given a short (or in some cases not so short) dialogue lead-in to their number, which added greatly to the characterisation and placing of the song, although I feel of further benefit to the viewer, naming the Musical from which the song was taken would have been a nice idea. Fortunately there were only 3 songs in the whole concert which were new to me and couldn't place the Musical, but others would not have been so fortunate / knowledgeable.
Under Ian Good's direction and Robert Purves's musical tutelage (perhaps also his piano playing), these songs and characters were brought nicely to life, despite the circumstantial drawbacks. The first half (Cole Porter) started well with 'Why Can't You Behave' (Kiss Me Kate) sung by Lucy Appleyard, followed by the first of the three songs which stumped me. This was a fine song and given a lovely interpretation by Megan Smart. It was 'Primitive Man' from 'Fifty Million Frenchmen'. There were 13 Porter songs in all, so I'll simply mention my 3 favourites, which were 'So In Love' (Alessia Ragno), 'Goodbye Little Dream Goodbye' (Rebecca Crookson), and 'The Right Guy' - the second song I had never heard before! (Megan Holland). Also in this selection they performed a song which I had only ever heard previously sung by a female, 'Be Like The Bluebird' given a lovely comedy run for its money by Ryan Davenport, and my all-time favourite Cole Porter song; 'Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye' sung by Olivia Hargreaves.
In the second act we moved over to the music of Cy Coleman (and no, before you ask, my all-time favourite Coleman song was not included sadly.. it's 'The Colours Of My Life parts 1 and 2' from Barnum). Again 13 songs, but this time 14 singers as we had one duet. Again, here are my favourite three from this section: 'Baby Dream Your Dream' (Sweet Charity) sung by Tilly Smith and Isabella Eades-Jones, 'Nobody Does It Like Me' (Seesaw) sung by Sarah Bailey, and 'Never' (On The Twentieth Century), sung by Megan Davies-Truin. The whole evening was nicely rounded off by another excellent performer (channelling Bernadette Peters) singing 'Lost And Found' from 'City Of Angels', (Kathryn Moon).
A very difficult ask under trying circumstances, excellently acheived. Thanks for keeping us all entertained in lockdown, and hope to see you all soon.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 24/5/20
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