Picture: Danny Kaan
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends continues at the Gielgud Theatre, London until 6 January 2024. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
What a glorious evening of unalloyed brilliance at the Gielgud with a superb cast headed by Sondheim muse Bernadette Peters and fellow Broadway legend Lea Salonga feasting on the works of the greatest composer of our time in a glittering revue originally conceived as a one-off tribute by entrepreneur Cameron Mackintosh after he left us at 91 with so many rich and profound memories.
That gala concert at the theatre Mackintosh renamed to honour his friend sold out so quickly that it was live-streamed to another full house nearby, giving Mackintosh the idea it might have legs for a proper West End run. This is it, not at the Sondheim but at its Gielgud neighbour and not with the same cast.
No Judi Dench doing ‘Send in the Clowns’ this time or Michael Ball, Imelda Staunton, Petula Clark or Julia McKenzie to name but five – although the wonderful McKenzie, Sondheim’s UK muse most associated with the original revue Side by Side by Sondheim back in 1976, gets name-checked by Peters in her outrageous version of ‘Broadway Baby’ and programme-listed as “side by side with” director Matthew Bourne – but with the same songs, although some naturally tweaked a tiny bit.
No need for a script, just 42 bewitching numbers from ten of his musicals, one from detective movie Dick Tracy and one, a tongue-twister of a spoof on the hit song ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ reconfigured as ‘The Boy From…’ by Sondheim and co-composer Mary Rodgers for an Off-Broadway revue called The Mad Show. Everyone will have his or her favourite from such a dazzling array of unmatchable material but Janie Dee’s rib-ticklingly funny, superbly nuanced treatment of this gets my vote even though it’s only a few weeks since I saw her do it with equal panache in cabaret at The Pheasantry. Looking a million dollars in some sparkly creations, this lady can make even a QWERTY keyboard sound great and she can dance too as we saw earlier.
But there are so many highlights and a few surprises, Gavin Lee’s camp, bitchy ‘The Little Things You Do Together’ from Company, a bit of role reversal in duet with Clare Burt, a late but great replacement for Haydn Gwynne who sadly had to withdraw for personal reasons. Burt, a fine performer, has many moments, none more striking than her gloriously boozy ‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ from the same show.
Not often does a 75-year-old play Red Riding Hood but Peters is such a consummate actress she not only gets away with it but is funny and touching, particularly when Bradley Jaden’s Wolf with his priapic bushy tail comes howling along. What a pocket dynamo she is, and on her long-overdue West End stage debut – equally strong in comedy as a strumpet with trumpet in the ‘You Gotta Get a Gimmick’ routine from Gypsy with Burt and the ever-reliable Joanna Riding and in drama (a slow, pared-down ‘Losing My Mind’ and ‘Send in the Clowns’, the song that got me into Sondheim in the 1970s when folk singer Judy Collins took it into the pop charts).
The nostalgia ‘Clowns’ invoked brought out a hankie but I needed two after Salonga’s ‘Loving You’ from Passion. What a voice and clarity this lady possesses. I hesitate claiming there’s none better but in Brian Clough’s famous words: “I’m not saying I’m the best football manager in the business but I’m in the top one!” A musical theatre star best known over here for Miss Saigon, Salonga has worldwide renown too for Gypsy and Sweeney Todd. After watching her powerhouse ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ and assured Cockney comic touch with ‘The Worst Pies in London’ when may we have her back in the West End? It’s a voice worth going a long way to hear.
Jeremy Secomb’s insane Sweeney Todd, memorably reprising the role he re-created in a Tooting pie shop, then took to London and New York, is frighteningly good. His word interplay with Salonga on ‘A Little Priest’ is a little gem.
Jason Pennycooke’s ‘Buddy’s Blues’ is a real crowd-pleaser and Jac Yarrow’s distinctive voice stands out, mainly as Rapunzel’s Prince in his wickedly funny ‘Agony’ duet with Damian Humbley, himself as dashing and on point as ever.
Sondheim, a great supporter and helper of young talent, would have been delighted to see Yarrow and the younger generation, Jaden, Christine Allado, Beatrice Penny-Toure, Harry Apps, Marley Fenton, Bella Brown and Monique Young, getting so many opportunities to shine, particularly in the West Side Story section where Stephen Mear’s choreo-creativity is seen to maximum effect. It’s only a few months since Brown was playing an eye-catching Cassie in Arts Educational’s A Chorus Line and here she is, learning from some of he greats of musical theatre in the West End.
If she does half as well as another Arts Ed alumnus Bonnie Langford she will have a long and happy career. Aged eight, Bonnie was playing Baby June in Gypsy in the West End, later on Broadway, and recently celebrated 50 years in showbiz, still high-kicking and doing the splits as elastically as ever as she heads towards 60. Her trademark flexibility is used to jaw-dropping effect in some stunning ensemble numbers like ‘Weekend in the Country’ but she more than holds her own in solo mode too, notably in that Follies homage to longevity, ‘I’m Still Here’.
The lengthy Into the Woods sequence brings Jill Parker’s costume design into sharp focus in a phenomenal team performance: Bourne’s razor-sharp direction and musical staging, Matt Kinley’s set, Stephen Metcalfe’s musical arrangements and, most of all, the splendid 14-piece orchestra conducted with elan by Alfonso Casado Trigo. Pure bliss from start to the ‘Side By Side’ finale.
Plaudits for everyone bar the guys who put the glossy but semi-useless programme together. To charge £12 for that and not tell the audience which show each song belongs to or who performs them reeks of “if you don’t know that, why are you here?” But when people, not always Sondheim regulars, are spending that sort of money surely they are entitled to all the information that could make their very expensive evening out as pleasurable as possible.
Rant over, do go and see Old Friends. It’s super-slick, easy on the eye and great fun. Maybe 42 songs will be Sondheim overload for some but committed Sondheimites would willingly stay on for more. I missed ‘Franklin Shepard, Inc.’, ‘Another Hundred People’ and ‘Our Time’ but there are so, so many to choose from.
It was good to see McKenzie, the ageless Petula Clark and Helena Bonham Carter who all appeared in the 2022 concert among the buzzy, star-studded press night audience.
But don’t try to relate Red Riding Hood to child abuse like some will – I’m sure that never crossed Sondheim’s mind when he wrote Into the Woods. For goodness’ sake, it’s ENTERTAINMENT. Written by God. Apart from the programme. Enjoy!
Jeremy Chapman
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