Review: The Barn Presents - The Music of Elliot Davis
We recently caught up with part three of the Barn Theatre’s musical theatre concert series, The Barn Presents; this time celebrating the music of award-winning composer and book writer, Elliot Davis.
Davis is a jack of all theatrical trades it seems, having been a writer for musicals, film and radio. Most notably, he wrote the book for Soho Cinders and composed the music for Loserville and Out There with Busted’s James Bourne.
He actually studied law at Warwick University but whilst there, became heavily involved with his music and performed in many productions at the affiliated Warwick Arts Centre. However, what came next is something dreams are made of. Davis found out who the legendary Lionel Bart’s accountant was, wrote a letter and asked them to pass the correspondence on to Bart, where he asked for work experience of sorts. Not only did he respond, Davis ended up transcribing for him in his early career! What an entry into the industry!!
Davis exudes warmth and passion for his craft throughout the hour-long programme and there is a great selection of his work performed during the concert.
The overriding highlights are those songs co-written with the late, great Stephen Clark, who wrote the book and lyrics for Love Story and Zorro amongst others. The concert opens with the beautiful ‘Coldest of Men’, performed by Jamie Muscato and then later on, Aimie Atkinson sings the gorgeous ‘Lifetime of Love’ with plenty of gusto and emotion.
There are several nods to Loserville and Out There, which highlight a different side to Davis’ work. Lucie Jones is perfectly suited to sing ‘Long Run’ from Loserville and she does a particularly special run on the line “hearts will shatter”, which I greatly appreciated. Whilst there is no doubting Jones’ talent, the fact that she was reading the lyrics off her iPad made it more difficult to engage.
Aaron Sidwell, who previously starred in Loserville, performs a song from Out There: ‘Hope Is Fading Fast’. The lyric greatly resonates today and it has a lovely country feel. Other songs from Out There include the ethereal ‘Space’ (performed by Luke Bayer, who starred in the original YMT production 10 years ago) and co-writer James Bourne sings and plays the guitar on the nostalgic ‘Learn To Dance’.
In a lesser known Davis musical, Sam Lupton and 2020 graduate Jordan McMahon duet on ‘How About Love’ from Best Friends and Butterflies. There’s lovely storytelling conveyed here and I love the build as the song progresses.
Other special songs include ‘Gloria’; here performed by Jos Slovick (of recent 1917 fame) whose extremely unique voice sounds amazing on the track and the concert is rounded off by the soulful Aaron Lee Lambert with ‘The Village Song’, a number that was influenced by Elton John about longing for New York.
The best in the Barn’s musical theatre series so far. I look forward to the next installment.
To watch the concert, and others in the series, please click here.
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