ajhlovestheatre

STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS

Conceived by Cameron Mackintosh

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Directed by Matthew Bourne ‘side by side’ with Julia McKenzie

Gielgud Theatre, London – until 6 January 2024

https://sondheimoldfriends.com

There’s so much to adore about this scintillating celebration of American musical theatre genius Stephen Sondheim that it’s hard to know where to begin. It’s clearly a labour of love for everyone involved creatively, and an embarrassment of riches for us in the audience. Devised by producer Cameron Mackintosh, whose association with the maestro began in the mid-1970s with the revue Side By Side By Sondheim, staged by Matthew Bourne in tandem with Julia McKenzie (inarguably the greatest interpreter of the great Steve’s work that this country has ever produced) and choreographed by showman extraordinaire Stephen Mear, there’s no attempt to provide biographical context, preferring instead to dazzle us with the work. This is effectively Sondheim’s Greatest Hits, performed by a team of seasoned talents, whose collective Broadway and West End credits could choke a cart horse, and a couple of rising stars, and that is more than enough. Actually, it’s even better than that: this is one of the most pleasurable theatrical evenings within living memory, a soaring but elegant appreciation of a once-in-a-generation talent presented with intelligence and showbiz flair, it delivers laughter, more than a few tears, and the uplift one associates with truly great musical theatre.

First presented as a one-off concert in the wake of Sondheim’s death last year, Old Friends (it’s title is derived from the 1981 flop Merrily We Roll Along, currently previewing again on Broadway in a sold out revival starring Daniel Radcliffe and Jonathan Groff) is handsomely mounted in its return season, and looks built to last, despite being only scheduled to play through to early January. The cast is again led by Sondheim muse, Broadway veteran Bernadette Peters, making her West End debut here, joined by Mackintosh favourite and international star Lea Salonga, and a parade of the London stage’s finest, many of whom feature a lot of Sondheim on their c.v’s.

Janie Dee brings the house down with a breathy, hilarious version of ‘The Boy From…..’ as does Joanna Riding delivering a flawless, manic account of the panic-stricken bride in Company’s ‘Not Getting Married’, a crowdpleaser that quintessentially captures Sondheim’s mixture of ruefulness and Manhattanite neurosis (“I telephoned my analyst about it, and he said to see him Monday / But by Monday I’ll be floating in the Hudson with the other garbage”). Damian Humbley is as vocally gorgeous as he is dramatically accomplished, and Jason Pennycooke has a lot of fun with ‘Buddy’s Blues’ from Follies. If Bonnie Langford seems a little uncomplicated to really nail the devastating ‘I’m Still Here’ from that same show, she remains an effervescent, loveable stage presence.

Clare Burt’s ‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ is a masterclass in acting through song, simultaneously exhilarating and discomfiting, and Gavin Lee’s waspish take on ‘Could I Leave You?’ is similarly multilayered. Amongst the younger performers, Bradley Jaden is terrific as an unusually sexy Wolf doing Into The Woods’s creepy-cute ‘Hello Little Girl’ opposite Peters’s hilariously off-kilter Little Red Riding Hood, and Christine Allado and Beatrice Penny-Touré sound and look divine as Anita and Maria in a West Side Story section.

Ms Peters is luminous, with delicate comedy timing and an extraordinary emotional acuity that remain totally unique. Although her voice, always a compellingly eccentric instrument, isn’t always secure she’s such a formidable technician that she leans into what she is capable of, and makes standards like ‘Losing My Mind’ and A Little Night Music’s ‘Send In The Clowns’ feel breathtakingly new minted and urgent. Salonga is a revelation. I’d naively thought of her as a sweet voiced eternal ingenue, but what a pleasure it is to be proved so utterly wrong. Her take on ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ is raw, dangerous and powerful, a glint of real mania behind the liquid black eyes, and her glorious Mrs Lovett opposite Jeremy Secomb’s fine, intense Sweeney is as funny as it is unsettling. She also triumphantly disproves my theory after seeing Annaleigh Ashford’s bewilderingly accented, overly-vaudevillian turn in the current Broadway production of Sweeney Todd that only British actresses should play this role.

Comparative newcomers to the blessed cult of Sondheim will appreciate the breadth and scope of the work on display here but older theatregoers may notice the magnificent ghosts that hang benignly over the whole enterprise. Not just of the man himself, but also the phantoms of earlier performances, of Peters’s own creations of the Witch in Into The Woods and Sunday in the Park With George’s Dot (both of which we get tantalising, heart catching glimpses of), of Julia McKenzie’s triumphs in everything from Company and Follies to Into The Woods and Sweeney. It’s hard not to be reminded of Sheila Gish’s Olivier-winning turn in Company when Burt cantankerously shakes her golden mane during ‘The Ladies Who Lunch’ (Burt played Susan in that 1996 Donmar production) or of David Kernan, who first reframed Phyllis’s venomous ‘Could I Leave You?’ from Follies as an acidic attack from an exasperated male lover, in Side By Side By Sondheim, and is matched in sibilant bite here by Gavin Lee. Many of the current performances are every bit as fine as their predecessors but they collectively form an inspirational, intriguing homage.

Cameron’s detractors could argue that this is Sondheim filtered through a Mackintosh prism (the impresario features in a surprisingly large amount of the projected imagery that dominates Matt Kinley’s gleaming set), but with production values this elevated and the sense of affection towards both the material and the artist himself so pronounced, only a churl would complain. The music is so good -literally a selection of the very finest showtunes of the last half-century, breathtaking in scope and ingenuity- and the lyrics, by turns piercingly witty, heartrendingly moving and fiendishly difficult (for the performers that is, not for us), so brilliant, it’s almost too much: an opulent champagne shower of excitement and ingenuity where the enjoyment never lets up, even as it’s tempered at times with the most exquisite pain.

Alfonso Casado Trigo’s orchestra sounds lush, full and way larger than it is. It’s also wonderfully versatile as it negotiates Jonathan Tunick’s unsurpassable orchestrations, whether it’s the whipped cream waltz lightness of Night Music or the terrifying bombast of Sweeney. All the creatives are at the top of their game, from Warren Letton’s golden lighting and Mick Potter’s crystal clear sound to Jill Parker’s stylish costumes. The way choreographer Stephen Mear builds numbers is exemplary, finding a dynamism in the material and the performers that simultaneously showcases and illuminates: really marvellous work.

The intelligence of the way that the show is put together means that the individual numbers, although out of context, preserve their power and impact, be it comic, tragic, or usually a combination of both. Interestingly there’s nothing from the fascinating Pacific Overtures, perhaps one of the trickiest from which to extrapolate individual songs, which is all the more reason to get to the Menier Chocolate Factory for the rare revival happening there this winter. In the meantime, this is a ravishing collage of Sondheim, and an enthralling smorgasbord of musical theatre magnificence that will be talked about for years to come. Please don’t miss it.