This weekend's offering on the Universal Pictures YouTube channel, 'The Shows Must Go On', was the final two short concerts from Official London Theatre's short charity concert series 'West End Unplugged'. These two concerts were reviewed when they were first aired, and so here is this reviewer's thoughts on the third concert in that series, from September this year.
Episode three of four streamed live last night and is available to watch for free on the Official London Theatre's YouTube channel. As with all the concerts the aim is to raise much needed funds for a failing industry. Sadly, due to the coronavirus and subsequent restrictions, many people who earn a living from the entertainments industry, whether as a performer, backstage, FOH or in any other capacity, have seen themselves out of work, furloughed, etc, and it is estimated that at least a third of professional musicians have already been forced to leave the industry in search of alternative employment. These concerts therefore are hoping to raise money to help these who are in need, and the money will be split equally between the following three charities: The Back-Up Technical Charity, Help Musciians UK, and The Theatre Artists' Fund.
This concert, as with the previous two, was hosted by choreographer Anthony Van Laast, and with a superb small band under the leadership of Ben Goddard, the three performers, in a socially-distanced covid-safe environment chatted to Van Laast and performed their songs.
Hannah Waddingham gave us a beautiful cover version of the Etta James hit "At Last". This song has been covered by many people over time, more famously perhaps by Glenn Miller and more recently, Beyonce. However, I really enjoyed Waddingham's interpretation. Her second song, despite being a softer and more thoughftul song, still had grit and heart and was given a very emotive treatment. It was Cole Porter's "Do I Love You", originally written for the musical, 'Dubarry Was A Lady'.
Joe Stilgoe, pianist, composer, performer, raconteur, actor, and son of Richard Stilgoe, was very entertaining with his choice of songs. Sitting at the piano and accompanying himself, he sang first his own re-written version of Frank Loesser's song, 'The King's New Clothes'. Made famous by Danny Kaye on film, but this song too originated from a stage musical. Stilgoe followed this with one of my favourite songs from 'Starlight Express', "There's Me". It is a song that was cut for the 'All New... version sadly, but since his father wrote the lyrics, perhaps this rendition was a little more sentimental than it really needed to be. Stilgoe finished his set with his own composition of the reflective and slightly humorous piece, "Seaside".
Opening and closing the concert was the third of this evening's guests, David Bedella. His first song was a very strong and powerful version of 'Sweet Transvestite' from 'The Rocky Horror Show'. Despite Bedella's best efforts this song really doesn't work in a concert version.. unless you go the whole hog, which obviously he didn't. He closed the concert with the song he used to closed his own London shows with; a song by Ted Koehler and Rube Bloom with his own re-written lyrics (apologies to Tony Bennett), "Don't Worry About Me". A fitting end to another superb concert performed with aplomb by three extremely talented singer-performers.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 23/9/20
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