Piaf – No Regrets: Christine Andreas at The Pheasantry, London.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
One of the finest voices in the cabaret world, two-time Tony nominee Christine Andreas was at her electrifying best in a three-night residency at The Pheasantry.
Superbly accompanied by composer husband Martin Silvestri on piano and accordion, the Broadway star totally inhabited Edith Piaf and hypnotised her audience – they gave her not one but two standing ovations at the end of an absorbing 75-minute set.
Wearing a black dress – Piaf always wore black – Andreas delivered 15 mostly-familiar Piaf numbers in a flawless accent yet, outside the songs, she doesn’t speak a word of French, relying entirely on her ear to pick up the inflexions and meaning.
Elaine Paige, who played Piaf in the 1993 West End revival of Pam Gems’ musical play about her extraordinary, drug and alcohol-fuelled life, was in the first-night audience and must have been as thrilled as we all were by Andreas’ power and passion.
Her ‘If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas)’, the English version of the 1958 Jacques Brel masterpiece, was unbearably poignant. Although not specifically referring to that song or the beautiful ‘Autumn Leaves’ that came out of ‘Les Feuilles Mortes’, Andreas hates most translations of French songs, saying they “totally wounded” the originals.
As an example, she and Silvestri duetted on ‘The Poor People of Paris’, a mis-translation of ‘Le Goualante de Pauvre Jean’. Without looking at the written words, American songwriter Jack Lawrence heard ‘Pauvre Jean’ as ‘pauvres gens’ (poor people) and created an entirely different story!
Finishing her set with great hits ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien’, ‘Badam, Badam, Badam’ and ‘Milord’, Andreas also shows herself to be a terrific actress. Her use of hands and arms is nothing short of exquisite.
Abandoned by her mother as a baby, Piaf did her own PR work, frequently embellishing the stories of the poverty of her youth, being brought up by prostitutes in her grandmother’s brothel, her own pregnancy as a teenager and her drug reliance to sell herself to an adoring public.
Often economical with the truth according to Andreas, the Little Sparrow created her own legend. Her biggest love affair was with the audience.
In the 13 years before her death at 47, her companion was the much-younger Charles Aznavour but it wasn’t a sexual relationship. Aznavour insisted he never made love to her but was her willing slave, looking after her finances and writing songs with her.
Her greatest love, former world middleweight champion Marcel Cerdan, was torn from her when his New York-bound plane crashed with no survivors in 1949.
Her best-known song ‘La Vie en Rose’ was also the title of the biopic for which Marion Cotillard won Best Actress Oscar in 2007 and she was given a ten-minute ovation after singing 27 songs in a Carnegie Hall concert when loaded with drugs to ease her pains.
Piaf was some woman and Andreas totally nailed her. The gorgeous sensual vibrato of her soprano is in just as good shape as it was 42 years ago when she followed Julie Andrews as Eliza Doolittle.
It is such shame this star of My Fair Lady, Oklahoma! and On Your Toes has done nothing on Broadway since the 2010 transfer of La Cage aux Folles. She is magnifique.
Next month Piaf – No Regrets goes back to Feinstein’s 54 Below, the plush Manhattan nightspot where she gave birth to the show in June 2017, and ties in with the 9 November launch of an album of the same name which she recorded in London with a 36-piece orchestra.
Jeremy Chapman
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