Original London Cast – 2016 /
Music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Bob Merrill
Starring: Sheridan Smith, Darius Campbell, Marilyn Cuts,
Joel Montague, Gay Soper, Valda Aviks, Philip Bertioli
Rate: 8 (from 1 to 10) /
Photos by Marc Brenner
Review: On the night I saw this show, Sheridan Smith
was out and the role of Fanny Brice was brilliantly played by Natasha J. Barnes
and I sure miss her in this album. Barnes has a strong voice that, although we
can’t compare her with Barbra Streisand (no one compares with her), carried the
songs with feeling, power, humor and emotion. As for Smith, she has a good
singing voice, but her power range isn’t very high and she sounds better in the
comic numbers.
As for the recording, this is
one of the best scores ever written for a musical. With songs like “People”,
“Don’t Rain on My Parade” and, a personal favorite of mine, “The Music That
Makes Me Dance”, this is Jule Styne at his best! I confess I love all the
songs, but you know me, I’m passionate about this kind of music. Besides the
songs I already mentioned, I can’t resist tunes like “I’m the Greatest Star”,
“His Love Makes Me Beautiful”, “Funny Girl” (written for the movie version), “I
Want to Be Seen with You Tonight”, “Who Are You Now?” and all the rest.
There are two new songs that
I never heard before and I don’t even know if they were part of the original
Broadway production. One is “Temporary Arrangement” sung by Darius Campbell as Nick
Arnstein, that fits perfectly into the score and the same can be said about the
too short “What Do Happy People Do?”.
Back to the cast, Darius
Campbell has a sweet manly voice that makes his Nick perfect. In supporting
roles, Marilyn Cuts as Fanny’s mother and Joel Montague as Eddie give it all
with the funny “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows?”.
Of course this new recording
doesn’t have the power of the original Broadway cast or the movie soundtrack,
but it’s impossible to duplicate Streisand. This is also a small scale
production and the orchestrations by Chris Walker aren’t as strong as the
original ones by Ralph Burns, but they have a true feeling of the period and I enjoyed
longer versions of some of the songs, like “Henry Street”.
This won’t replace the
original with Streisand, but it’s more than enjoyable and it has the kind of
“music that makes me dance” and dream!
To read my review on the London revival click here.
I've never heard of “What Do Happy People Do?”, but "Temporary Arrangement" was written as Nick's second act solo, but dropped out-of-town. Jule Styne liked the song but a.) Sydney Chaplin couldn't sing it, b.) the show was way too long, and c.) Jerome Robbins was convinced that the only way to make the show work was to throw out anything that wasn't Barbra/Fanny. It will be great to finally hear it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know about "Temporary Arrangement".
ReplyDelete