Review: LORNA DALLAS - SNAPSHOTS, Crazy Coqs
Photo credit: Steve Ullathorne
The Crazy Coqs is a delightful intimate cabaret room below the Brasserie Zedel with a varied programme of music and comedy. This was our third visit, this time to see the fabulous Lorna Dallas do her wonderful set of musical theatre tunes. The last visit in 2022 was for a collection called Glamorous Nights and Rainy Days and was a collection of songs from her past, prompted by a lockdown cataloguing of memorabilia from her career. Previously, we saw her at the same venue in March 2019 in her set called Stages, when we were blown away by her charm, delightful reminiscences, and beautiful voice.
This set is titled Snapshots, which provides a loose link to songs with a mention of memories, photographs and personal recollections; she calls it her photo album. It features tunes from the last one hundred years and an amazing line up of composers: Kander and Ebb, Jerome Kerr, Jerry Herman, Ivor Novello, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim and Marvin Hamlisch. Dallas, at one point, calls them her “dead guys”, to distinguish them from her director Barry Kleinbort, who provided a few updated lyrics and a brand-new song, ‘Stillness’, from his yet to be produced musical, Travels in Vermeer.
Lorna Dallas has a delightful personality, brimming with charisma that, from her first appearance, engages the audience with her joy of performance, soaring soprano voice, and clear and precise diction. Her eyes sparkle, her smile charms and she sings with such passion that she sells each song with authentic emotion. Her eyes draw in the audience adding to the intimacy, as she makes each member feel like she is singing to them alone.
Accompanied by her musical director, Christopher Denny, she starts as she soon as she enters the cabaret room with a beautiful romantic arrangement of ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’ (a hit for Sandie Shaw in 1964) before singing ‘The Happy Time’ from a musical about a prize-winning photographer. When she pauses to take a selfie of the audience, she introduces the theme and reflecting those photos: “remind me of who I am and where I have been”.
The oldest song in the set is ‘London, Dear Old London’ from 1922, as she reflects that when she first came to London in 1971 to appear in the revival of Showboat, she was invited to a “spot of tea” with Dame Patricia Routledge. Then follows up with a song from the musical Love Match, a little-known musical about Queen Victoria and Princess Albert which starred Routledge in the US but never transferred to the UK.
She adds little personal stories from her family album to introduce songs and add poignancy to the words. When she introduces ‘Blues in the Night’, she recalls a picture of her late sister Cissy singing the song. To set the scene for ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’, she tells us that when Paris fell in World War II, Oscar Hammerstein II wrote a poem which Jerome Kern set to music. ‘Flash Bang Wallop’, the brilliant celebration of historical weddings from Half a Sixpence, is introduced with a story of the photographer at her own wedding to Gary Brown, falling down a step.
Another favourite recollection which she repeats from her Stages set involves ‘Stranger in Paradise’ from Kismet, in which she starred in the West End in 1978. She sings the same song in the style of the show, as she sang it in cabaret each evening at the Savoy after the show, and as she recorded it in Germany during visits to Munich during the day. It is an amusing highlight of the show.
Two songs follow - ‘Simple’ and ‘Take the Moment’, which are linked by the singer Sergio Franchi who appeared in the musicals Nine and Do I Hear a Waltz? as he apparently suggested a tour with her which did not happen . She concludes with ‘Ordinary Miracles’ and ‘Once in a Blue Moon’. sung with the same intensity and emotion, and a genuine pleasure of performing at the venue.
Lorna Dallas is an accomplished cabaret performer, selling each song with her eyes and emotion, and at her best when connecting the song to a personal recollection. She chats less this time than in 2022 but she still sings with passion and joy with clear diction and enunciation, and provides a charming and enjoyable set. With an MD, director and publicist alongside, she clearly performs for the love rather than the money, and it is that passion that connects her to the audience and makes this such an enjoyable set.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
You can catch Lorna again tomorrow (23 July at 7pm) at the Crazy Coqs, followed by a ‘Comparing Notes’ interview with musical theatre obsessive, Edward Seckerson, with further info here.
