Charlotte Bradford – Leicester Square Theatre

Charlotte Bradford performed Songs My Dad Said I Should Sing at the Leicester Square Theatre, London

Songs My Dad Said I Should Sing: An Evening with the Stephen Sondheim Society and Charlotte Bradford was performed at the Leicester Square Theatre, London.

The third in the Sondheim Society series of one-hour cabarets which give lesser-known talents the chance to showcase in the West End was a mixed bag.

This was a version of a show that actress Charlotte Bradford had aired before at various London venues, including the Leicester Square Theatre, the difference being that some Sondheim had to be included if she wanted to avoid a riot.

In fact, the Sondheim pieces, from Sweeney Todd, Company and Into the Woods, were some of her best work, showing off, when the early nerves had settled down, a strong, tuneful voice and good acting ability.

There was also some Bob Dylan (a shaky ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right’), Tom Waits (an excellent ‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You’), a powerful anti-war song ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ by Eric Bogle (a Scottish folk singer/songwriter who emigrated to Australia), and the hilarious and rather rude ‘A Simple Valley Song’, about the chaotic love life of a Welsh girl from the age of eight to adulthood which showed off Bradfords’s gift for accents.

Her faultless Cockney for Mrs Lovett in Sondheim’s ‘The Worst Pies in London’ was a joy, and this was followed by an acceptable ‘Another Hundred People’, always a difficult one to carry off (but which Sondheim is not?) and ‘On the Steps of the Palace’, from Into the Woods, was a good choice for her encore.

Less successful was the rambling set-piece about the trials and tribulations of trying to get into musical theatre which simply wasn’t funny enough to justify the time spent on it. Olivier Award-winner Clive Rowe, who directed the show, should have exerted a firmer hand here.

Clearly nervous to start with, London girl Bradford started getting us onside with her warm stage presence from the ‘Waltzing Matilda’ gem onwards, telling us about the influence of her parents, but little about her current self apart from a love affair that went wrong.

Bradford proved she has plenty to offer though, as does her accompanist, Gary Jerry, whose Sondheim piano medley kicked off a pleasant hour on exactly the right note.

Next up on 13 November will be the 2010 Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year Alex Young, a lady with a great feel for witty material who has recently finished a long tour of High Society.

Jeremy Chapman