Alex Young with her guest Matthew Crowe during An Evening With the Stephen Sondheim Society at the Leicester Square Theatre Lounge, London. Picture: David Ovenden (www.descripta.com)
An Evening With the Stephen Sondheim Society… and Alex Young at the Leicester Square Theatre Lounge, London.
It was standing-room only for the first time at one of these monthly Stephen Sondheim Society sessions at the Leicester Square Theatre Lounge, and rightly so for Alex Young, winner of the society’s prestigious Young Performer of the Year competition three years ago and a very funny lady indeed.
Mixing modern and usually naughty songs with an obligatory measure of Sondheim, she whizzed through a lively hour, making the most of her terrific sense of humour with a series of animated stories and elastic facial expressions.
Since winning the society’s prize, Young’s career has picked up speed with parts in The Buddy Holly Story, The Sound of Music, Ruddigore and this summer playing Liz Imbrie in the tour of High Society.
She will always do well as a comic actress-singer because audiences clearly love her and her bubbly, infectious personality worked brilliantly on silly songs like ‘Twiddly Bits’ and later a bawdy number about lesbians.
She loves Sondheim – “so much that I kept a boyfriend for four years because I thought he looked a bit like him” – and after a fine ‘By the Sea’ from Sweeney Todd, she brought on Matthew Crowe, a friend from Royal Academy of Music days who has since been treading the boards in South Pacific and Titanic. Their ‘You Must Meet My Wife’ duet from A Little Night Music was a hoot.
Not everything she did was marvellous – two Burt Bacharach numbers failed to impress – but when she stuck to the humorous songs she was in her element and carried an enthusiastic audience with her.
Andy Smith was her accompanist and the theme of past Sondheim winners is being repeated next month when the equally entertaining 2012 champion Kris Olsen tops the bill with actress and singer Alice Fearn for the Christmas show on 16 December.
Jeremy Chapman
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