Broadway Babies Rosalie Craig, Maria Friedman, Bonnie Langford, Helena Bonham Carter and Bernadette Peters in Old Friends at the Sondheim Theatre. Pictures: Danny Kaan
Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Sondheim Theatre, London (and live-streamed at the Prince Edward Theatre).
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
It must be a record! The fastest time to stop a show after curtain-up came at the Sondheim Theatre when Julia McKenzie stepped on to the stage and softly sung the words “Side by Side…” A millisecond later, the audience exploded with an interminably long roar – a heartfelt (and ear-splitting) outburst of happiness, surprise, appreciation, sadness. And this was just the first in a long string of magical show-stopping moments that had the capacity crowd at the theatre on their feet for ovation after ovation.
With the passing of Stephen Sondheim last November at the age of 91, it was inevitable that his London fans would soon find a way to pay tribute and to celebrate his phenomenal output. “London was Steve’s second home,” said Cameron Mackintosh as he introduced the evening he lovingly curated with the help of co-directors Maria Friedman and Matthew Bourne, musical director Alfonso Casado Trigo and choreographer Stephen Mear. And where better to lionise this god of the theatre than in the house that now bears his name?
Blessedly, after Mackintosh’s brief introduction, there was no other chat. Do Sondheim songs need much of an introduction? Not as far as this diehard crowd was concerned. What followed was sheer bliss for us Sondheimites – a breathtaking excess of songs – a glut, an embarrassment, a multitude of Sondheims – served up by a who’s-who of West End luminaries. And of course, all the way from Broadway, the high-priestess herself, Bernadette Peters.
This glorious celebration allowed all those performers whose careers and lives had been enriched and transformed by Sondheim and his songs to give praise and thanks, crossing the generations from Julia McKenzie to the ensemble of student performers from the Royal Academy of Music and Mountview that also filled the barely disguised Les Mis set. (Indeed, the set came in handy, doubling variously for Victorian London, New York’s Upper West Side and the Brothers Grimm’s fairytale Europe. Nice touch!)
Showstopper Julia McKenzie
Friedman and Bourne did not let up one iota, cattle-prodding their cast through song after song – 23 numbers in the first half, and 17 in the second – and ensuring a delicious mix of favourites plus a couple of lesser-known treats. Clive Rowe soft-shoed on for a velvety rich ‘Live Alone and Like It’ from the Dick Tracy movie, for example, and the classy Janie Dee treated us to ‘The Boy From…’, a comic number from The Mad Show, the 1966 Off-Broadway musical that Sondheim worked on with Mary Rodgers, inspired by MAD magazine.
But every Sondheim classic was here, each performed by a star name: ‘Comedy Tonight’ (Rob Brydon, Clive Rowe, Gary Wilmot), ‘Getting Married Today’ (Jon Robyns, Holly-Anne Hull and Anna-Jane Casey at breakneck pace), ‘Agony’ (Julian Ovenden, Michael D. Xavier), ‘Children Will Listen’ (Bernadette Peters), ‘A Weekend in the Country’ (Desmonda Cathabel, Rob Houchen, Holly-Anne Hull, plus Ovenden and Xavier), ‘The Worst Pies in London’ (Michael Ball, Maria Friedman), ‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ (a stunning Haydn Gwynne), ‘Sunday’ (Daniel Evans, Peters) and, of course, ‘Send in the Clowns’ (Judi Dench). And this was just a selection from the first half! Just imagine it: you’ve had Dench’s ‘Clowns’ (Sondheim’s favourite performance) and ‘Sunday’ – the closest thing to religious ecstasy for us musical theatre heathens – and you’re only half way through the show.
After a quick ice-cream to cool down, we were back for more classics: the ‘Tonight Quintet’ from West Side Story (Shan Ako, Christine Allado, Louis Gaunt and Houchen, joined by the RAM and Mountview students); the most outrageously camp ‘Broadway Baby’ surely ever realised on stage (performed by a elbowing, attention-seeking rabble of Friedman, Gwynne, Peters, McKenzie and – deep-breath – Helena Bonham Carter, Rosalie Craig, Josefina Gabrielle, Amy Griffiths, Bonnie Langford and Jenna Russell); a perhaps even more camp ‘Everybody Ought to Have a Maid’ (Brydon, Ovenden and – again, be still my beating heart – Damian Lewis and Siân Phillips).
What next!? ‘You Gotta Get a Gimmick’ from Gypsy, that’s what, with a trumpeting Bernadette as Mazeppa – amazingly, at 74, bending double and blowing a bugle between her legs! – with Casey and Langford as Electra and Tessie Tura. Langford wowed the audience with a jump-split then wowed us even more by getting back up again and walking off!
‘Everybody Ought To Have a Maid’: Rob Brydon, Julian Ovenden, Damian Lewis and Siân Phillips
The boys were up next for a couple of Follies numbers, with Ashley Campbell, Houchen, Bradley Jaden and Charlie Stemp serving up ‘Waiting for the Girls Upstairs’, and Michael Ball delighting us with a gender-flipped ‘Could I Leave You?’
Petula Clark graced us with a most touching – and utterly inhabited – ‘I’m Still Here’. And, prefaced with a roof-lifting roar as she walked into the spotlight, Imelda Staunton stopped the show (for the umpteenth time) with a reprise of her unmatched ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ from Gypsy.
No Sondheim celebration would be complete without ‘Being Alive’, and an ensemble arrangement more than did the song justice. To close the night, we were treated to a triple header of ‘Old Friends’, ‘Side by Side’ and, most movingly, with ever more students pouring into the stalls, ‘Our Time’.
Supporting this glittering line-up was a fabulous 25-piece on-stage orchestra conducted by the unflappable Alfonso Casado Trigo. Given the ‘kick bollock and scramble’ nature of the event (in the words of one the stars before curtain up!), Trigo deserves a medal for his ability to keep it all ticking along, and with such a reserved grace and ease – no showboating here.
It looked and sounded gorgeous too, thanks to Warren Letton’s lighting and Mick Potter’s sound design. All too often, these galas can have a lot of understandably rough edges and suffer from iffy sound, but not so this evening – slick and polished.
It was a privilege – albeit an expensive one, at £250 for a stalls seat – to spend this evening in the company of those who adored Sondheim, celebrating his contribution to the world. But how lovely that so much was raised for the Sondheim Foundation too. As Chair of The Stephen Sondheim Society, I make no apologies for the gushing. This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable extravaganza that was worth every penny, and one that will send me to my grave with a smile on my face.
“It was like a fever dream,” said Mountview student Joe Boyle afterwards. And he was right. Who among the 1,200-strong crowd at the Sondheim didn’t enter an almost Stendhalian fugue state… breathless, dizzy and overcome by the power of the artist? Judging by the roars and orgiastic screams that swelled throughout the night, I wager that we all did.
So thank you, Cameron et al, for the best possible tribute. There were a lot of tears, of both sadness and joy. It felt like the end of an era, but also the start of an exciting new one, as the old friends passed the musical baton to the stars of the future. Musical theatre is in safe hands, and whatever happens, we know we’ll have Steve’s music to see us through. What a wonderful legacy. Goodbye for now, old friend…
Craig Glenday