Nigel Osner performed his show ‘Revamped!’ at The Pheasantry, London. Picture: Daniel Sutka
Nigel Osner performed his show Revamped! at The Pheasantry, London.
Multi-talented Nigel Osner’s cabaret act is as varied as the career that has taken him from practising barrister, to published novelist, to actor in several films and onstage, to performer of his own lyrics and monologues familiar to many London venues. His latest show, Revamped!, encompasses a wide range of songs and character-based monologues including a generous helping of Osner’s original material, with music for several of the songs written by pianist Tom Wakeley.
In the first half, Osner regales the audience with a repertory of accents ranging from southern-state American to Australian to French to upper-class English, underscored by Wakeley’s lush accompaniments. One highlight is a splendidly acted spoken-voice performance of ‘I Went to a Marvellous Party’ (Noel Coward, included in Set to Music). The monologues that intersperse the musical numbers include ‘The Tale of Reverend James’, a poem subsequently used as the basis of a 2008 film, in which Osner expertly animated many different characters simultaneously.
Osner pledges more of a ‘theatrical’ turn for the second half, which he delivers through a sequence of in-costume personae – this surely being the next logical step in the evolution of his trademark character-based performances. One after another, he adeptly assumes the guise of a well-to-do gentleman named ‘Gerald’, a Dracula-style eastern European vampire, and an ageing sequinned diva who rather amusingly struggles to sit atop the piano (requiring assistance from actor and audience member Kane Surry).
The second half also affords Wakeley the opportunity for a couple of well-received solo spots, in which he shares his memories of his recent activity as conductor of the West End’s Chicago through a condensed version of the show, as well as taking the audience back to his roots as a lounge pianist who once jammed with Larry Adler. The manner in which he extemporises such standards as ‘Summertime’ (Porgy and Bess) and ‘Tea For Two’ (No, No, Nanette), while concurrently holding a casual conversation with the audience, is truly impressive.
Osner and Wakeley duet with gusto in ‘Bosom Buddies’ (Jerry Herman’s Mame) and ‘It’s Never Too Late to Fall in Love’ (Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend), the latter featuring Wakeley comically performing the girl’s part in falsetto. They also keep the audience engaged throughout the show with some hilarious double act exchanges in between songs, a strong mutual respect evidently underpinning the surface-level banter.
If I were permitted one minor criticism it would be that the title Revamped!, coupled to the indications of the show’s coverage of the living and the supernatural, led me to expect more of an emphasis on the latter, which seemed only to figure prominently in the vampiric central segment of the second half. But that takes nothing away from an unquestionably excellent evening.
Sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, but always hugely entertaining, Osner is an idiosyncratic and versatile performer and Wakeley his perfect pianistic partner.
Christopher Wiley
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