BILLY STRITCH is an award-winning pianist and singer who is known to audiences worldwide for his many solo concert performances and as accompanist and musical director for Liza Minnelli, Tony Bennett and Marilyn Maye to name but a few. During the pandemic, Billy created his own weekly Facebook livestream music show called Billy’s Place. For […]
Tag Archives | Liza Minnelli
Tenth anniversary tour of Judy & Liza – first dates announced
The tenth anniversary tour of Judy & Liza is set to be one of first shows to visit UK regional theatres as the country emerges from lockdown. Written by and starring Emma Dears (Les Misérables, UK tour and West End, Miss Saigon, West End) opposite stage and screen actress Helen Sheals (Judy! Arts Theatre, The Rise […]
Liza Live! – Live at Zédel
Liza Live! at Live at Zédel, London, Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Since the cancellation of her Q&A concert at the London Paladium two seasons ago, Liza Minnelli has been away from the spotlight, so it’s good to have her back on stage, at least in spirit as portrayed by the […]
Interview: Gemma Sutton – star of The Rink at the Southwark Playhouse – finds the best things come in small packages
GEMMA SUTTON joins Caroline O’Connor in the first London revival of Kander and Ebb’s The Rink in 20 years, opening at London’s Southwark Playhouse this week. The Rink, running from 25 May until 23 June 2018, is the story of Italian housewife Anna (O’Connor), who runs a failing roller-skating business on the East Coast of the US, […]
Judy & Liza – Winchester and Touring
Judy & Liza was reviewed at the Theatre Royal Winchester. The show continues touring until 16 June 2018. Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Clearly a labour of love from West End veteran Emma Dears (the youngest actress to have played the title role in Annie at the age of nine before […]
Elaine Paige presents star-studded collection of show tunes on latest CD
West End leading lady turned radio presenter Elaine Paige has used her expertise to help put together a three CD collection – Elaine Paige Presents Showstoppers from the Musicals – celebrating the best and most successful stage and screen musicals. The Evita star who now presents the hit Radio 2 show Elaine Paige On Sunday has […]
Liza’s Back! (is Broken) – Trevor Ashley – Underbelly Festival
Liza’s Back! (is Broken) continues at the Underbelly Festival, Southbank, London until 2 July. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Australian performer and female impersonator Trevor Ashley, returning to London once again in the persona of Liza Minnelli, delivers a brilliant tour de force performance that combines superb singing with wicked and […]
Isabelle Georges – Oh Là Là! – St James Theatre Studio
Isabelle Georges performed her show Oh Là Là! at the St James Theatre Studio, London, as part of the London Festival of Cabaret. Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ The London Festival of Cabaret treated us to the-long awaited London debut of French triple threat Isabelle Georges in the intimate setting of the St James Theatre […]
Ushers – The Front of House Musical – Arts Theatre
Ushers – The Front of House Musical continues at the Arts Theatre, London until 18 October. Rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ Following two successful seasons at the Charing Cross Theatre last year, and straight from a triumphant run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Ushers – The Front of House Musical is at the Arts […]
Bruce Forsyth to host An Evening With Liza Minnelli
Bruce Forsyth has been announced as the host who will interview American showbiz legend Liza Minnelli on Sunday 20 September at the London Palladium in An Evening With Liza Minnelli. Forsyth said: “I am absolutely delighted to be spending an evening in the company of one of the truly great entertainers of our age, someone I […]
Liza Minnelli interviewed at London Palladium show in September
Currently in her sixth decade of performing, Liza Minnelli, winner of four Tony Awards, an Oscar, a Grammy, two Golden Globe Awards, an Emmy and a BAFTA, is to follow in the footsteps of Hollywood movie greats Sylvester Stallone, Al Pacino, John Travolta and Arnold Schwarzenegger by getting up-close and personal with her British fans […]
The Best of the Danny Kaye Show – new DVD release
Michael Darvell reviews new DVD release, The Best of the Danny Kaye Show. Danny Kaye (1911-87) was born David Daniel Kaminsky in New York of Ukrainian Jewish parents who had left Russia two years before their son’s birth. He was a performer from childhood. After his mother’s death when he was a teenager, he left home […]
Billy Stritch – My Musical Heroes – The Pheasantry
Billy Stritch: My Musical Heroes continues at The Pheasantry, London, until 4 October. Award-winning composer, arranger, vocalist and jazz pianist Billy Stritch is back in town and deserving of a far bigger audience than the meagre 20 who saw him open mid-week at The Pheasantry. In the full-house Ronnie Scott’s audience the night before to hear […]
Flora, the Red Menace – Guildford School of Acting
Flora, The Red Menace is performed by Guildford School of Acting MA Musical Theatre students at the Ivy Arts Centre, Guildford, Surrey. Unless you’ve lived near Dundee, Richmond, Brighton or the London Fringe, you are unlikely to have seen Kander and Ebb’s first collaboration Flora, the Red Menace, as this 1965 forerunner to Cabaret and Chicago has never made […]
Janie Dee and Jason Carr – The Pheasantry
Janie Dee and Jason Carr performed their shows at The Pheasantry, London. It was little wonder that the divine Janie Dee chose the old Liza Minnelli number ‘Yes’ for her late-show cabaret at The Pheasantry as the Kander & Ebb classic encapsulates exactly the sort of trip this extraordinary actress-singer is on right now. You […]
The World Goes ‘Round – Union Theatre
The World Goes ‘Round: The Songs of Kander & Ebb continues at the Union Theatre, London until 8 February. You’d have to be seriously allergic to musicals not to enjoy this tuneful retrospective of the work of those Broadway giants John Kander and Fred Ebb, famous, of course, for Cabaret and Chicago as well as […]
Carole J Bufford – Crazy Coqs
Carole J Bufford performs her show Body and Soul at the Crazy Coqs, London until Saturday 11 January. Now we know why the New York cabaret world is raving about the new kid on the block. Carole J Bufford is very, very special. A standing ovation for her very first gig outside the USA at […]
Liza is back, courtesy of Trevor Ashley
Following his week at London’s Vaudeville Theatre in May this year, Trevor Ashley is back in the West End for one night only, after a brief UK tour. Michael Darvell spoke to the man behind Liza (on an E), his show about the great Minnelli. In fact Trevor Ashley is Liza, or at least he […]
Cabaret – Wimbledon Theatre and Touring
Cabaret was reviewed at the New Wimbledon Theatre, London before continuing on tour. Never mind what those ‘Best Musicals of All Time’ polls say, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s hilarious, poignant and, yes, frankly shocking interpretation of Christopher Isherwood’s autobigraphical novel is one of the greatest ever written, some would say THE greatest, and now […]
Liza On An E returns for UK tour
Following a successful West End debut earlier on this year, Australian performer Trevor Ashley is taking his show Liza On An E out on its first ever UK tour. Channelling the talents of the iconic Liza Minnelli, Ashley will appear at the Theatre Royal, Brighton (30 September), the Dancehouse, Manchester (1 and 2 October), The Auditorium Liverpool […]
Will Young and Cabaret on tour
Singer/songwriter Will Young will reprise his role as the Emcee in Rufus Norris’ acclaimed production of Cabaret. Following a successful West End run, the UK tour of the musical will open at London’s New Wimbledon Theatre on 28th August. Ever since winning the inaugural series of Pop Idol in 2002, Young has been one of the UK’s […]
