Get Your Irish Up - St Pat Irish Slam Click here to watch Or Clickhere to watch It’s going to be hard to avoid St Patrick’s Day this week so better relax and enjoy it. David Staller’s wonderful George Bernard Shaw organisation is throwing a party although it’s going to be a little hard for us in Europe as it’s at 6.30 ET (11.30pm GMT) on St Patrick’s Day itself. He’s inviting all you Irish poetry types to tune in live on Zoom or Facebook. Register first, then join in with a poem, an excerpt, a saying, a song, or a toast from any Irish writer. And he’s inveigled an incredible array of stars, many of whom are certainly not Irish, to join in too. There will be lots of virtual treats & surprises. Sounds like fun. Mar 17 Look to the Rainbow – A Celebration in Song Click here to watch And while we’re honouring good old St. Patrick, KT Sullivan couldn’t let the day pass without a song fest. She’s gathering her friends as usual (some of whom are only dubiously Irish) so there will be songs from Tim Connell, Eric Yves Garcia, and Sean Patrick Murtagh (I'd guess we're safe in thinking that he's Irish) with pianists James Followell and Bill Zeffiro with guest Julie Kurtzman on violin. The show airs at 7pm ET but will then be available until the end of the month. Mar 17-31 Love, Noel - Irish Rep on demand Click here for tickets Steve Ross and KT Sullivan, the reigning king and queen of New York cabaret, perform the songs and letters of the Master, Noel Coward, in this charming show from the Irish Rep. $25 The Aran Islands – JM Synge – Irish Rep Click here for tickets One more Irish event for this St Patricks Day week. JM Synge’s atmospheric play reimagined as a one-man play with the brilliant Irish actor Brendan Conroy. This is a hypnotic performance, a haunting and visceral experience by one of Ireland’s finest actors, capturing the spirit of Synge in Joe O’Bryne’s theatrical adaptation of this early work, The Aran Islands. This all-new production was filmed in Ireland in early 2021 during lockdown, and made specifically for digital viewing. If you are watching in Europe be sure to choose one of the matinee performances. $25 Mar 16-28 L’Heure Espagnole - Grange Park Opera Click here to watch This is a witty reboot of Maurice Ravel’s rarely seen ‘opera comique’, L’Heure Espagnole, transposed cleverly from 18th century Toledo to contemporary Kensington Church St. It’s about an unwitting clockmaker and his rather flighty wife, who experiences romantic complications one afternoon, while her husband is out on municipal business. Mar 20 Uncle Vanya – Anton Chekhov Click here to watch Just before lockdown, there was a simply wonderful new production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, with Toby Jones in the title role. It closed prematurely because of the pandemic but the BBC had the sense to record it. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the sense to make it available beyond its initial broadcast. Well, it’s back, and available on BBC iPlayer and, this time, please don’t miss it. Toby Jones is the Vanya of my lifetime but his is not the only performance to cherish, by far. In this production by Ian Rickson, Roger Allam’s Serebryakov and Richard Armitage’s Astrov are so strong that they balance Vanya exactly as Chekhov intended. A lot of the credit must go also to Conor McPherson’s flexible and sinuous new adaptation. There, you knew there had to be an Irish connection this week, didn’t you? The producer, Sonia Friedman, gathered the cast and crew during the pandemic, in an empty theatre, to resurrect this abruptly truncated production so we could watch it online. Good for her. A Love Letter to Liza - 75th birthday celebration Click here for tickets If you hurry, you can still watch Liza’s 75th birthday celebration, tonight, Mar 15 at 11pm GMT. It is crammed to the gills with performers anxious to show their affection for the star who’s been part of our lives for all of hers. Chita Rivera, Jonathan Groff, Michael Feinstein, Billy Stritch, Ute Lemper, uncounted others, equally famous. It worries me that this show is a sort of valediction, not quite a eulogy, but too close to that for my comfort. It should not be forgotten that Liza is still with us. It’s a mark of her fame that her surname doesn’t need to be affixed to the title. This is the last night of a three-night event in support of the Actors Fund. Tickets at $30 seem not too high for the line-up Mistake Waltz - The Concert - New York City Ballet Click here to watch It’s unkind of me, I know, but I love it when I can spot a mistake on-stage. It makes me feel cleverer than I am, so this clip is one of my favourite ballet moments. Having spent much of my early life in ballet classes getting everything wrong, it’s a real pleasure to be able to watch real ballerinas doing it too. All their mistakes are, of course, deliberate, but that doesn’t make them any less hilarious, at least to me. This is from Jerome Robbins’ 1956 The Concert and, if there’s any such thing, it can be said that it’s full of mistakes performed perfectly. I even love the pompous and unnecessary introduction that precedes it. Sweeney Todd – Stephen Sondheim Click here for tickets Put two Stephen Sondheim fans together in a room, or on a subway train, or on a Zoom, and you’ll find yourself in the middle of an argument about which production of which show was better. But there is very little argument from those of us old enough to have seen all the Broadway and West End productions of Sweeney Todd as to which is the greatest. Most will opt for this one, the film and Broadway cast led by George Hearn and Angela Lansbury. On Amazon Prime. Rent £3.49 or Buy £7.99. Julie Andrews Sings Her Favourite Songs Click here to watch If you need some cheering up after watching Sweeney Todd wielding his trusty razor to slice up half of London, you can’t do better than join Julie Andrews while she sings her favourite songs. Right from the first note you know you’re in good hands. She is in complete control of her voice, her material, her lyrics, her audience. You never feel worried for an instant when Julie’s on stage. She was a child star, both parents were in ‘the business’ and there was hardly a moment in the intervening years when she wasn’t performing. That is, until something awful happened. In 1997, she developed nodes on her vocal chords. It is an occupational hazard, happens to a lot of singers, but eminently treatable. She had surgery in one of the best hospitals in the world, it went wrong, and her voice was damaged beyond repair. That voice whose perfect pitch couldn’t sing a wrong note, was relegated to a croak. This show, fortunately, was recorded in 1989 before that happened and I’m so glad we’ve still got the Julie Andrews flexibility, warmth, talent, and professionalism, to hear again. Will we ever again have an artist who can own the stage like this? Her final encore here is I Promise You I’ll Never Say Goodbye and, lifelong trooper that she is, we never thought she would. Chanson Profonde – Sandra Boynton Click here to watch If you’re not familiar with the work of Sandra Boynton you’re in for a treat. She is an American humourist, songwriter, director, music producer, children's author, and illustrator. Boynton has written and illustrated more than fifty books for both children and adults, as well as over four thousand greeting cards, and five music albums but the best thing about her is that she makes me laugh. I hope she will do the same for you. By the way, the cello you hear by way of accompaniment is played by no less a personage than YoYo Ma.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
April 2024
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