Broadway Meets West End: Matthew Goodgame – The Pheasantry

Broadway Meets West End: Matthew Goodgame at The Pheasantry, London.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

What could be more apt on the eve of England’s most important football game since they won the World Cup 55 years ago than having the debonair Matthew Goodgame top the bill at The Pheasantry?

Nobody has played a better game than Goodgame at the famed Kings Road cabaret room in what was an evening of non-stop delight.

The musical theatre star of 42nd Street, Guys and Dolls and Chicago absolutely nailed every song in a two-hour show he shared with Olivier Award winner Lorna Want and a pianist of the very highest order in Chris Guard.

No surprise there as we knew he could sing – in my MTR review of Guys and Dolls at the Marigny Theatre in Paris two years ago I called his Sky Masterson the best voice onstage – but cabaret is a very different, more intimate, more audience-engaging art form and not every stage actor masters it.

After the 2019 French premiere of Guys and Dolls ended its intended 20-week run two months early because the riots and demonstrations had frightened tourists away, Goodgame put together a Broadway Meets West End show at The Pheasantry with 42nd Street star Clare Halse as guest but his cabaret performances have been rare.

You would never have guessed he’s a relative newcomer as this born entertainer had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand from the get-go with a flawless voice, dazzling repertoire and a wonderfully self-deprecating sense of humour.

“If you’ve seen me before, I’m surprised you’ve come back” and “Don’t you just hate it when your guest is so much better than you are”, leading the applause for Want’s haunting first solo, ‘With You’ from Ghost, were just two of the gems that put his audience immediately at ease.

Such a pity that Covid regulations forbade a full house (not for long, though) but joy unconfined that live entertainment is back and being performed with such flair and relish.

There was plenty of audience participation – “I’m not paying you even though you’re doing all this singing” – and two unsuspecting pizza-eaters were persuaded on stage to join the gyrating Goodgame, replacing his immaculate formal attire with leather bomber jacket, to demonstrate their jiving ability, or lack of it, in ‘Hound Dog’.

That was not the only Elvis in the programme as Goodgame is a great Presley fan but although he strayed from the show’s title more than once – the 1953 Dean Martin hit ‘That’s Amore’ and the 1958 Bobby Day smash ‘Rockin’ Robin’ were more pop than Broadway – nobody was complaining.

The natural interplay between him, Want and Guard looked effortless but won’t have come without a deal of hard rehearsal and his Phantom of the Opera ‘All I Ask Of You’ duet with Want, a 2015 Olivier Award winner as Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for Beautiful, was one of the highlights of a two-hour show it was impossible not to enjoy.

Beginning his adult life as a primary school teacher and encouraged to enter the 2004 C4 talent show Musicality where the prize was a one-night-only part in a West End show, Goodgame’s flashy defence lawyer Billy Flynn in Chicago went so well that he went on to play that role on tour and in far-flung Singapore and Las Vegas. Little wonder he opened Act II with a rousing ‘All I Care About is Love’ from that show.

A Guys and Dolls mash-up of ‘Lullaby of Broadway’ and ‘Luck Be a Lady’ was matched by Les Misérables classics ‘Empty Chairs’ and ‘Bring Him Home’ while the finale from 42nd Street enabled him to name-drop Bonnie Langford and Lulu as his West End leading ladies at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

‘Why, God, Why?, where married GI Chris asks God why he has fallen for bargirl Kim just as he is about to leave Vietnam, is not necessarily the best-known number from Miss Saigon yet in Goodgame’s hands it was almost unbearably moving.

The thrilling soprano of Want, a friend Goodgame has known since they worked together in Leicester on the Anything Goes tour, was equally touching in ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ while their ‘It’s De-Lovely’ duet was de-lightful.

That came from the Carole King musical in which Want played legendary US songwriter Cynthia Weil but never had the chance to perform the song she most wanted to sing. She took this belated opportunity in fine style.

There was one rich comedic moment when pianist Guard went off in mid-chord apparently desperate for a pee and Goodgame took over on The Pheasantry’s lovely Steinway for a self-accompanied medley of Presley ballads.

He played a good game there too in a slick, polished, classy show. I loved every single moment (even the ‘My Way’ encore, not a personal favourite) and am in the front of the queue for next time. He should do more cabaret, much more.

Jeremy Chapman