THEATRE REVIEW: A Spoonful Of Julie - The King's Arms Theatre, Salford.

'A Spoonful Of Julie' is actually much more of a one-woman cabaret than anything. Nicola Mills, trained operatic soprano with a love of Julie Andrews and the music she made famous, entertains us with those songs, accompanied on the piano by George, and tells a few snippets of interesting information and anecdotes about Julie's life and career in between.

The show, which Mills repeatedly kept reminding us, is normally much longer - she has had to "cut out all the good bits" for this shorter, but still considerably lengthy 80 minute show - started well enough with Mills entering from the back of the auditorium on a shrill and perfectly pitched "The" as she sang her way onto stage with ".....hills are alive with the sound of music". She sang songs from her film musicals [The Sound Of Music, Mary Poppins, Victor/Victoria], a TV live version of Rogers and Hammerstein's 'Cinderella', and her theatre roles [My Fair Lady, Camelot, The King And I], to name just a few. Mills was an excellent belt soprano, and loved finishing her songs on a high note fortissimo. She had more trouble however with the quieter, softer songs, and indeed some of the songs she did choose to sing simply did not suit her voice at all. Moreover, many of the songs were not actually Julie's songs at all, but just happened to have featured in the same film / Musical but were sung by other characters.

Despite the professionalism of the opening, things did get a little "sticky" as we went along. Her shoes were constantly sticking to the floor - [surely that would have happened in the dress run and been sorted before the performance?] - and she got stuck on the rear curtain a couple of times, as well as seemingly ad libbing much of the banter between songs, and getting a little lost in places. Mills is a down-to-earth, take-me-as-you-find-me true northern lass from Oldham, but this approach to her cabaret performance didn't sit well with the prim and terribly "upper" image we all have of Julie Andrews. The singing was good, but what happened in between wouldn't harm from a little perfecting. Her habit of commenting and interrupting herself mid song was offputting, whilst being constantly reminded that we were only getting a shorter and lesser version of the normal show, became irritating. 

The sound levels were generally too high. Why on earth she needed a head mic in such a small auditorium I have no idea. Just turn the volume down on the keyboard! And as for the lighting, this too was very distracting as it cut straight through a row of bunting strung high across the front of the stage, meaning that the shadows of said bunting were constantly in Mills's face.

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 23.7.22