Celebrating Sondheim – Encore, streaming from Chichester Festival Theatre until 25 March 2021.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Timed as a 91st birthday tribute to the only composer to have theatres named in his honour on Broadway and in the West End, this reissue of the Celebrating Sondheim concert filmed at Chichester last November is a feast of song and a joy to behold.
The four-day stream starts tonight (22 March 2021), the date not only of Steve’s birthday but by a remarkable coincidence that of Baron Lloyd Webber, a mere stripling of 73.
It was originally intended to celebrate Sondheim’s 90th birthday but then you-know-what came along to wreck 2020. So rather than have it gather dust in a drawer, Chichester has given this 100-minute humdinger of a show, directed with flair by Louise Shephard, a well-earned extra spin in a very good cause.
An immaculate cast was assembled by Chichester’s artistic director Daniel Evans who dons his singing hat for the occasion and invites friends Jenna Russell, Hannah Waddingham (who recently won a Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in the US TV series Ted Lasso), Gabrielle Brooks and Clive Rowe to join him. With more than two-dozen Sondheim numbers to perform, they all have a ball, as does the rapt audience.
Evans himself starts the ball rolling with the hilarious ‘Invocation and Instructions To The Audience’ from The Frogs, ordering the full house: “Please don’t cough, it tends to put the actors off… please don’t fart, there is very little air and this is art. We’d appreciate you turning off your cell phones while we wait…” at which exact point a mobile does go off and, of course it belongs to Evans himself!
After such a jovial opening it is down to serious business, a soulful ‘Not While I’m Around’ from Rowe and a jazzy ‘Sooner Or Later’ from the statuesque Waddingham with superb backing from musical director/arranger Theo Jamieson on piano, Joe Evans on drums and Richard Coughlan on bass.
The title song from Sunday in the Park With George reunites Olivier Award winners Evans and Russell who played George and Dot in the 2005-6 London production and headlined the Broadway cast in 2008 where one-to-one sessions with Sondheim himself awaited them. Evans recalls him being “quite a strict teacher” and Russell says “there were plenty of notes”.
The Company segment follows, four numbers from that most audience-friendly of Sondheim’s work. Russell draws the short straw, tackling the fast bits in ‘Getting Married Today’, probably the hardest song to perform in the whole Sondheim repertory (although ‘Franklin Shepard Inc’ runs it close). But she sails through.
The whole cast has parts in that one and in ‘The Little Things You Do Together’, while Rowe and Evans offer solos on ‘Sorry-Grateful’ and ‘Marry Me a Little’.
Next up a group of four from Into the Woods – Waddingham and Russell worked together in the 2010 Regent’s Park Open Air production; Rowe starred in an earlier revival at the Linbury Studio. He and Russell, as the Baker and his Wife, team up a treat for ‘It Takes Two’ while Waddingham is bewitching on ‘The Last Midnight’.
We have a female Jack for ‘Giants in the Sky’, well acted by Brooks, and a male ‘Broadway Baby’ from Rowe. Both sex-swaps work. While in ‘The Miller’s Song”, Brooks is Petra-perfect as the ambitious maid dreaming of marrying the Prince of Wales or a rich businessman who will give her “five fat babies and lots of security”.
That comes from A Little Night Music from which Waddingham is entrusted with Sondheim’s most recognised song ‘Send In The Clowns’. She absolutely nails it.
From Merrily We Roll Along – Evans played Charley Kringas at the Donmar in 2000 and Russell became Mary Flynn at the Menier and Harold Pinter in 2012-13 – comes a mash-up of ‘Old Friend’ (“it’s not three of us any more, it’s 1 + 1 + 1”) and ‘Like It Was’, followed by the tricky ‘Franklin Shepard Inc.’, a flawlessly rendition from Evans.
Russell’s pure, crystal-clear ‘Losing My Mind’ from Follies is everything it has to be as is Waddingham’s plaintive ‘Children Will Listen’ from Into the Woods. Those are two of Sondheim’s greatest but Brooks’ ‘What More Do I Need?’ from Saturday Night, the first full musical Sondheim wrote, stands up well against them in the final segment.
After a planned Broadway opening in 1955, Saturday Night was cancelled when the lead producer died and took the financing with him. It gathered dust for 42 more years until performed professionally – at the Bridewell on the London Fringe – and even longer, until 2000, to place Off-Broadway.
Also on a programme containing so many treasures it’s impossible to big them all up are ‘Everybody Says Don’t’ (Anyone Can Whistle), Prelude’ (Sunday in the Park), an Evans mash-up of ‘No More’ and ‘Running Away’ (Into the Woods) and an unusual wedding together by Rowe of ‘Not a Day Goes By’ from Merrily and ‘What Can You Lose?’ from the Dick Tracy movie.
For the first encore Evans chooses ‘With So Little To Be Sure Of’ from Anyone Can Whistle “because it’s so pertinent to what we’re going through” and the five stars come together to close the show with that beautiful hymn ‘Sunday’.
A delightful cast, delightful song choices and a delightful celebration of the man who is arguably the world’s greatest living composer. A very happy birthday to you, sir, and may there be many more of them.
Jeremy Chapman
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