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Matthew Harvey – Whatever Happens Next.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
British musical theatre composer and performer Matthew Harvey has released his debut album – a compact eight-song repertoire entitled Whatever Happens Next.
Having amassed performance credits in West End stalwarts such as Les Misérables and Jesus Christ Superstar, Harvey branched out into writing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The album features a collection of songs from five of his creations, recorded by himself alongside a variety of musical theatre performers including Eloise Davies, Courtney Stapleton and Katie Shearman.
The track listing includes: ‘The Road’, ‘As Far As We Get’ and ‘Myles’ Song’ from Now or Never, ‘Only You’ from Kindred, ‘Twist My Words’ from Unplugged, ‘One Two Three’ from Reveries and ‘Only a Moment’ from Starcrossed. The title track is also from Now or Never and arguably the jewel in the crown of this selection, looking ahead to the future with an air of optimism.
With the contextual knowledge that Harvey created Now or Never as an artistic response to the theatre industry’s resilience and strength during the pandemic, this takes on even more poignancy and is an inspirational rather than despairing end note.
Supported by a team including London Musical Theatre Orchestra’s Freddie Tapner as musical supervisor and Matthew Whittington as producer, it is little wonder that Harvey’s debut album is such a well-executed assortment of his work to date. A superbly crafted capsule collection, Whatever Happens Next gives just the right flavour of variety in Harvey’s work while simultaneously providing enough of a hook to leave the listener curious about the remainder of each show’s storyline and score, likely winning new followers amongst even the most traditional of musical theatre fans.
Sorcha Exworthy
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