This weekend's Universal / The Shows Must Go On online YouTube offering was the first two in a series of online concerts premiered in September,. and were indeed reviewed at that time by this reviewer. Here is my review of the second of these two concerts.
The second of 4 online concerts compered by renowned choreographer Anthony Van Laast featuring current West End Muscial Theatre stars and a small band under the musical direction of singer/songwriter Ben Goddard. Organised by Official London Theatre and L-Acoustics Creations, the online concerts aim to raise money for a few charities working to help those people who work within the live theatre industry, backstage, technically, as part of the theatre itself, and indeed the performers too, all of whom have seen their jobs either furloughed or lost completely over the last 6 months. The charities are: Back-Up (The Technical Entertainment Charity), Help Musicians UK, and Theatre Artists Fund.
In this benefit concert, again with the same high production values and high quality content; Aisha Jawando was first to step up to the mic. Singing two songs ('Private Dancer' and 'What's Love Got To Do With It') from the Tina Turner jukebox show, 'Tina'.
In fact the whole concert was devoted to the pop / rock jukebox musical, with the next item being sung by the resident MD Ben Goddard "coming out of retirement" to sing a cover of the Elvis Presley hit, 'One Night With You'. Very powerful and Presley-esque.
Finally, the third and last singer this evening was Mazz Murray who sang three songs from the show that she has been involved with for a long time, 'Mamma Mia'. She is currently recording her second studio album, which features these songs in a very much stripped-back form (how they were sang this evening) with just her voice and guitar accompaniment. Hearing hits such as "The Winner Takes It All" and "Thank You For The Music" without all the pop accompaniment that one normally associates with the songs does allow you to focus much more on the lyrics, and Murray's interpretations were very emotive and meaningful.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 17/9/20
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