Make It a Double – Tammy Davies and Pippa Winslow – KOMO, Guildford

Make It a Double was performed at KOMO, Guildford.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Taking time out from Bill Kenwright’s UK touring production of The Sound of Music, Tammy Davies and Pippa Winslow brought their two-woman cabaret show to the newly renovated KOMO, a high-end cocktail bar and live music venue in Guildford’s town centre, following its successful premiere earlier in the year at The Garage, Swansea.

Hearing Davies and Winslow perform in Make It a Double, two things become immediately apparent. One is the excellent rapport they have with each other onstage, borne of a relatively recent friendship in that they met while working on The Sound of Music tour, in which they play Sister Sophia and Frau Schmidt, respectively. The other concerns how perfectly their voices complement one another, their sound blending delightfully in the vocal harmonies of such duets as ‘What is This Feeling?’ (Wicked).

From the opening number, in which Davies and Winslow sing Irving Berlin’s ‘Sisters’ (White Christmas) while wearing nun’s habits in a tacit nod to their day job, it is clear that their cabaret will be anything but conventional. This comedic coup de théâtre paves the way for a hilarious American-Welsh interpretation of ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’ (Shall We Dance), drawing inspiration from Winslow’s solo show Just a Housewife, as well as ‘Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)’ (Annie Get Your Gun), complete with topical references to the upcoming US presidential election.

Davies and Winslow’s extraordinary versatility is abundantly evident throughout. A performance early in the evening of the ‘Cat Duet’ (attributed to Rossini), displaying some convincing operatic coloratura, is succeeded by Delibes’ ‘Flower Duet’ from Lakmé (popularised by an advertising campaign for British Airways in the late 1980s) in the second half. An amusingly one-sided sing-through of ‘Willow, Tit-Willow’ from The Mikado acknowledges Davies’ eight-year stint touring with the national Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company.

Their recontextualisation of the musical theatre repertoire is taken to extremes with a succession of duets for both male and female characters, always sung at pitch. Following an admirable rendition of the title song to The Phantom of the Opera (in whose US tour Winslow had participated), the double act returned after the interval as the Princes from Into the Woods for a performance of ‘Agony’. This aspect of the cabaret reaches its inevitable pinnacle in the finale, an adaptation of ‘One Day More’ (Les Misérables) in which they negotiate every single role between the two of them.

Both singers also shine as individuals. Winslow’s interpretation of ‘Send in the Clowns’ (A Little Night Music), sincere and self-deprecating, is wonderfully endearing, and sharply contrasts with her humorous realisation of Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich’s cabaret song ‘Los Pinguinos’ (The Marcy and Zina Show).

Davies’ beautiful performance of ‘Anthem’ (Chess) takes on the guise of a paean to her own mother country, while her endlessly energetic rendition of Queen’s ‘Somebody to Love’ (We Will Rock You), laced with vocal gymnastics, is one of the highlights of the entire set.

Make It a Double combines limitless entertainment with an informal atmosphere ideally suited to both the nature of a Sunday evening cabaret and the characterful venue in which it was performed. Some of the fresher takes on the classics of musical theatre are unlikely to find favour with traditionalists, but they clearly won over KOMO’s sympathetic audience.

Christopher Wiley