The Songs of Maltby and Shire – The Keep, Guildford

The Songs of Maltby and Shire was performed at The Keep, Guildford

The Songs of Maltby and Shire was performed at The Keep, Guildford.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★

The third of Fasten Your Seatbelt’s evening cabarets was dedicated to the work of lyricist Richard Maltby, Jr and composer David Shire, the songwriting partnership behind the musical revues Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever as well as the shows Baby and Big, the latter a musical theatre adaptation of the 1988 blockbuster comedy film starring Tom Hanks.

That Maltby and Shire’s creative collaboration was celebrated through just four shows (their 2007 musical Take Flight could not be included owing to the lack of availability of sheet music) afforded the opportunity for each to be represented more substantially than just by a token song or two. The cabaret also seemed to be invested with more directorial ambition than previous events, not least in its opening number, which featured live singing from all performers dotted among the audience on the ground floor of Guildford’s The Keep pub.

Helen Cohen, evidently on fine form given the strength of her vocal presence throughout the evening, excelled in her entertaining turns in ‘You Wanna Be My Friend’ (Closer Than Ever) and ‘The Ladies Singing Their Song’ (Baby). Pippa Winslow, while matching Cohen’s overstated performance in the latter number, also revealed a more sensitive side in her interpretations of ‘Patterns’ (Baby/Closer Than Ever) and ‘Autumn’ (Starting Here, Starting Now).

Nate Rogers-Branch deployed his versatility as a singer to great effect, projecting both endearing sincerity in ‘I Chose Right’ (Baby) and a vocally powerful aura in ‘What About Today’ (Starting Here, Starting Now). Newcomer Becky Van-Orden, clearly blessed with a natural ability to move gracefully to the music, demonstrated a flair for storytelling that did her great credit in solos such as ‘Stop, Time’ (Big) and ‘Life Story’ (Closer Than Ever).

With fewer shows to introduce, Paul Rogers-Branch was less in demand as compere, enabling him to focus his energies on delivering an animated performance of ‘Crossword Puzzle’ (Starting Here, Starting Now). The evening’s piano accompaniments were skilfully programmed, as always, by musical director Ian Reilly, whose role on the night may have been reduced to periodically pressing the space bar on his laptop, but was no less important nonetheless.

In a change from previous cabarets, songs drawn from the same show were presented in a block one after another. Since Baby comprised the majority of the first half of the evening, six or so numbers in quick succession all on themes of expectant parents and giving birth did not perhaps make for the most varied set. Consideration might have been given to mixing up the different shows more, not least because the second half was entirely devoted to Maltby and Shire’s revues, whose constituent songs have little in common with one another in any case.

That said, Fasten Your Seatbelts should of course be congratulated on another excellent cabaret, and one that brought Maltby and Shire’s superb musical theatre output to the attention of an audience largely unfamiliar with their work.

Continuing the momentum generated by previous events, Fasten Your Seatbelts returns to The Keep for an evening of the songs of Cy Coleman on 29 October, with a further cabaret dedicated to Stephen Sondheim planned for December.

Christopher Wiley

www.fastenyourseatbelts.co.uk

Readers may also be interested in:

The Songs of Kander and Ebb – The Keep, Guildford – Review

The Songs of William Finn – The Keep, Guildford – Review