Wilma and Friends – St James Studio

West End Wilma was joined by a varied group of artists for a cabaret at the St James Studio, London

Wilma and Friends Cabaret was performed at the St James Theatre Studio, London.

You didn’t really need to be Sherlock Holmes on entering the St James Theatre’s plush, if very compact downstairs studio space to realise this was not going to be your average night’s entertainment – a whole tea set, various teddy bears and a stand stacked with edible, colourful cup cakes sitting on top of the piano told you that.

That and the almost regal figure of ace reviewer and blogger West End Wilma sitting close to the stage, holding court and being feted by all present. Not least all the vocalists – a more varied and interesting collection of talents it being pretty hard to imagine.

Never intended or planned, I suspect, as a faultless, rehearsed-to-death show, this one-off production by way of homage to Wilma was often a little bit ragged, but that really just added to its charm, each artist bringing something very different to the talent table on the night.

Experienced big show performer Kieran Brown certainly gave it his all, changing jackets almost as much as he changed musical genres, and with tangible relish and effortless on-stage style, even donning a witch’s costume and clutching a broomstick for an audition skit number for Wicked, which was simply wicked.

Then, in total contrast, there was drag artist Velma Celli, aka Ian Stroughair, striding on stage, towering over the audience and who, once a rather tiresome personal preamble was out of the way, grabbed the audience by the scruff of the neck and clearly had no intention of letting their attention wander during some great covers. Initially easy to perhaps dismiss as just an average drag artist, as the evening wore on, and especially when he returned sans female attire, as Stroughair, I’d admit to having seriously underestimated his talents.

This audience had clearly come for a good, unpretentious evening’s entertainment, and an invitation from Brown to sing-a-long to ‘Master of the House’ from Les Miserables was not going to be passed up, the performer being joined onstage by vocalist and dancer Jenny Gayner in grubby character with blackened teeth and a bottle in hand.

That was the signal for everyone to loosen up and just go with the musical flow, the feisty figure and powerful voice of Hannah Levane proving a heady combination during a superb set, which included a moving cover of Miss Saigon’s ‘The Movie in My Mind’. Given the fine musical talent billed, surprise guests seemed superfluous. But, the performance of Shannon Williams was a sheer delight, from first note to last, and fellow guest artist Aidy Aziz cut an impressively confident figure on stage (credit to musical director Niall Bailey too). If there was a criticism it was that there were not nearly enough cup cakes to go round. On the night though, the real icing on the cake was seeing Wilma, beaming from ear to ear during her thank you speech at the end – she’d had a ball, and so had everyone else.

Derek Smith