Christina Bianco’s Birthday Bash – The Pheasantry

Christina Bianco’s Birthday Bash at The Pheasantry, London.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Christina Bianco is far more than the sum of her near-200 impersonations and the pocket dynamo New Yorker, who now lives with fellow American husband Billy Ernst and much-loved pooch in London, used her two-night Pheasantry debut to tell the world she’s a serious singer-entertainer in her own right.

Labelled a great laugh as an impressionist back in 2016 when starring in the Anglicised version of Forbidden Broadway, the rude, laugh-out-loud revue that spoofed West End shows like Les Mis and The Book of Mormon, it took Stephen Mear and his joyous Paris revival of Funny Girl three more years to reveal the real Christina Bianco, a little lady with big ambitions who knocked it out of the park as Fanny Brice.

Big things come in small packages and it was odds-on that a city which embraced Edith Piaf (4ft 8) and Charles Aznavour (5ft 3) as its showbiz icons would fall in love with 4ft 10in Bianco. Until Funny Girl came along, impersonations had taken over her shows and while this Pheasantry birthday celebration wasn’t short of funny voices, Bianco was more concerned with singing from her own songsheet.

It was that side of Bianco which had a full house eating out of the palm of her hand in putting her own spin on standards like ‘A Foggy Day’, ‘What is This Thing Called Love?’,  ‘People’, ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’ and a gorgeous ‘With Every Breath I Take’ from City of Angels. And, beyond that, her ‘Christina With An A’ parody of ‘Liza With a Z’ which Kander and Ebb wrote specially for Liza Minnelli.

She had surprises for us too, ‘Everybody Wants to Be a Cat’ from The Aristocats, ‘More’, a Sondheim song that’s rarely performed (from the movie Dick Tracy), and most delightfully of all and perfectly timed for Valentine’s Day, ‘You’ve Let Yourself Go’, the rueful reminiscences of an old couple who have seen better days.

This terrific Aznavour number came in a beautiful translation by the great Fred Ebb and, along with her encore ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ was for me the high spot of the evening.

Immaculate arrangements by MD Ryan MacKenzie whose work on the piano was right out of the top drawer added lustre to Bianco’s sparkle.

Outside her impersonations, her own singing voice is strong and clear and her between-numbers chat endearing and lovable. Recalling that the Paris Funny Girl poster initially had her down as Christina BIANO, she listed all the variations on her name that have followed her around – not Christine, not Bianca, not Bianchi (and certainly not Biano!).

There was audience participation too as she handed out mini carrier bags containing the names of the many stars of stage and screen she has successfully impersonated down the years and asked us to choose who we wanted to hear.

Among those she regaled us with were Bernadette Peters, Celine Dion, Patti LuPone, Kristin Chenoweth, Judy Garland, Miley Cyrus and Julie Andrews. Later on, Shirley Bassey and Madonna. Most, like Peters and Dion, wickedly accurate but never cruel.

It was back to impressions last year when Bianco (who else?) played LV on last year’s tour of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. That was followed by Glinda in The Wizard of Oz at the Curve Leicester. Surely that big West End role cannot be far away.

Jeremy Chapman