Lorna Luft Loves London – Live at Zédel

Lorna Luft Loves London continues at Live at Zédel, London until 4 October 2019.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

The daughter of singer-actress Judy Garland and film producer Sidney Luft, and sister of Liza Minnelli returns to London in her one-woman show

It was perhaps poignant that Lorna Luft should be back in London during the week that Judy, the new film about her mother, Judy Garland, also opened in London. Luft obviously loves the UK and she has often worked here, possibly because she always gets a great reception from British audiences, as did mother Judy and sister Liza.

All three women have had their fair share of success all over the world and also an unfair amount of misery. We know that Garland had her demons that sent her to the bottle and to drugs, while Minnelli has also had her own share of woes. All three women in Judy’s family and that includes Lorna, have found solace in substance abuse.

Sadly, Judy succumbed with an accidental overdose that killed her, while Liza and Lorna have survived the drugs and the relationships that didn’t work out and have come out clean. Additionally Lorna has been through seven years of fighting cancer and a brain tumour but, as Vicki Lester says in A Star is Born – “but she recovered.”

Luft received a great welcome from her audiences at her recent season at Crazy Coqs with full houses every night. And you can see why, because, despite having been through the mill, Luft seems so positive and upbeat. Unfazed by her recent troubles she strides onto the stage and goes into Jerry Herman’s number from The Grand Tour, ‘I’ll Be Here Tomorrow’, and you can’t get much more positive than that.

Not averse to chatting to her audience, something she does endearingly well, Luft talks about the great songwriter Johnny Mercer and sings some of his best songs including ‘On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe’ which he wrote for the Judy Garland movie The Harvey Girls, a song from the era of the Great American Songbook.

And then Luft gives us a whole slew of Mercer hits including ‘One for My Baby’, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’, ‘Jeepers Creepers’, ‘Blues in the Night’, ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’, ‘Goody Goody’, ‘Too Marvellous for Words’ and the inevitable ‘Moon River’. She performs all these with great affection, savouring every last syllable.

The next revelation for Luft is The Beatles and the songs of the 1960s that changed popular music for ever. She also pays tribute to The Mamas and The Papas and in particular Cass Elliot – remember ‘California Dreamin’’ and ‘Dream a Little Dream’?

More banter leads us to Luft’s stage musical debut in 1971 and Promises, Promises, the Hal David-Burt Bacharach musical based on Billy Wilder’s film of The Apartment. A medley of their hits follows and what hits they were: ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’, ‘I Say a Little Prayer’, ‘Walk On By’, ‘Alfie’, ‘What the World Needs Now’, ‘A House Is Not a Home’ and so on.

Promises, Promises opened up a great career opportunity for Luft and she subsequently appeared in many more shows including Snoopy the Musical, Grease, Carnival!, They’re Playing Our Song, Little Shop of Horrors, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Mame, Girl Crazy, Guys and Dolls, Follies, Gypsy, White Christmas, Babes in Arms and The Wizard of Oz etc.

For the finale Luft launches into an exhaustive medley of songs that were never nominated for an Oscar including ‘Our Love is Here to Stay’, ‘Candy Man’, ‘They All Laughed’, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, ‘You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby’, ‘A Foggy Day’, ‘San Francisco’ and, even, ‘New York, New York’ which was a hit for you know who.

Finally, Luft pays tribute to her mother with the Al Jolson hit ‘Rock-a-bye Your Baby’ which Garland appropriated for most of her concerts.

Lorna Luft puts all these songs across with great feeling, passion and panache and, if the vibrato is a little too strong these days, well, there are worse things to worry about when you are enjoying the cream of American popular songs sung by a game trouper from the old school. Luft is accompanied by her husband, arranger and musical director Colin Freeman on piano and by Frazer Snell, her favourite bassist.

Michael Darvell