Life Is Just A Bowl of Cherries: Maria Kesselman at The Pheasantry, London.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
After 15 long months of cabaret deprivation, there was an undeniable buzz as The Pheasantry reopened with the delightful Maria Kesselman serenading a glad-to-be-back audience that would have been twice as big if Boris had not moved the goalposts.
Extending Step 3 on the road to semi-normality by a month means the Kings Road cabaret room is being compelled to operate an unprofitable socially-distanced operation until the Government’s delayed Step 4 hopefully comes into effect on 19 July.
Those lucky enough to get a table were treated to a blissful couple of hours with the soaring soprano who starred opposite Michael Crawford in the original production of Phantom of the Opera, first as the princess, then taking over the main role of Christine two days a week after understudying Sarah Brightman.
As petite and lovely as she was 35 years ago, the classically-trained Kesselman, backed by the excellent James Church on piano, gave us a wide variety of material, from Irving Berlin and the Gershwins to Sondheim and Herman, Porter to Piaf, Flanders and Swann to Tom Lehrer, Pam Ayres to Dillie Keane.
Something for everyone with every top note flawlessly hit. Not only is a Kesselman a joy to listen to but she acts the songs with eloquent arm movement that complements her pitch-perfect voice.
A great dog lover, she tugged at our heartstrings with a poem by Ayres and a Michele Brourman composition ‘The ‘Price of Love’, both mourning the loss of beloved animal companions and the price we have to pay emotionally for outliving them.
The poem ‘Tippy Tappy’ was particularly touching – “the silence, it’s blacker than the night” – when the house is suddenly empty, “the music it is missing and my home is incomplete”.
The highlight for many was ‘Look Mummy, No Hands’ by Keane and her songwriting partner Adele Anderson, about how daughters turn into mothers before they know it, never heeding the parental wisdom that comes from experience – “I used to dismiss you/now I just miss you/as my child grows away from me… how careless we are when we’re young.”
When we think of those two founders of Fascinating Aida it is their hilarious satirical pieces ‘Cheap Flights’ and the outrageous ‘Dogging Song’ we come to first, but their serious stuff like ‘Look Mummy’ is every bit as brilliant, and Kesselman delivers the words beautifully.
I’m sure the last time I heard Kesselman sing ‘If You Love Me’, Geoffrey Parsons’ English lyrics to ‘Hymne a L’Amour’, she did so in perfect French. For me, Piaf’s eulogy to her dead lover, boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, who was killed in an air crash when flying to New York to see her, sounds more powerful and passionate in its original form.
Another Kesselman choice with a fascinating back-story was the naughty ‘I Got It From Agnes’. Satirist Tom Lehrer left it off his album because he feared it was too near the knuckle. That was 60 years ago, times change. Today it’s still funny but sounds quite tame. It is ironic that this ditty has survived while most of his work is largely forgotten.
Such a feast of musical theatre classics too: ‘Song on the Sand’ from La Cage Aux Folles, ‘In Buddy’s Eyes’ from Follies, ‘I Get A Kick Out of You’ from Anything Goes and ‘Man of La Mancha’ bringing Act I to a rousing climax.
With the audience invited to sing along with “mud, mud glorious mud” (and doing so lustily), Flanders and Swann’s ‘Hippopotamus’ went down particularly well towards the end of a grand evening when we learned that Kesselman spent lockdown making mini toy dogs and planting more vegetables when panic first set in.
Finally, it was encore time – there’s no getting away from that cabaret evergreen ‘Over the Rainbow’ is there? We even got a bonus – ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’. Now we can, my fair lady, the long wait is over. Welcome back, cabaret!
Jeremy Chapman
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