“fills the space with her voice, her personality and her affection for the material she is singing”
It’s quite a feat to squeeze a six-piece band into the intimate space of The Crazy Coqs; part cabaret club and part cocktail lounge tucked away deep beneath the streets of Piccadilly. But whereas the band take up pretty much all of the stage, it is Liza Pulman who fills the space with her voice, her personality and her affection for the material she is singing.
She makes clear from the start that this is not a tribute act or any over indulgent homage to Barbara Streisand. Her stamp is indelibly her own, and although she clearly holds Streisand in high esteem, she doesn’t demand that the audience do the same. For me, at least, what is being showcased are the many composers and songwriters behind Streisand’s phenomenal success. And, of course, Pulman herself.
Accompanied by her band, the Stardust Ensemble, she kicks off with ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ before launching into a refreshingly upbeat, Bossa Nova rendition of Carole King’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. Touches like this set the tone for the evening. You may be overfamiliar with the original tune but Liza, aided by her MD and musical arranger Joseph Atkins, has a knack of breaking away from the usual treatment of a song. Later on in the set, during ‘New York State of Mind’; where Billy Joel drops his register in the bridge, she soars; the purity of her sustained notes replacing the original melancholy vibe of the song with the promise that anything is possible.
Ballads are interspersed with lighter, more uptempo tunes such as Harold Rome’s ‘I Can Get It For You Wholesale’, Fats Waller’s ‘Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now’, Paul McCartney’s ‘Honey Pie’ and ‘Second Hand Rose’ from the Broadway hit that catapulted Streisand to fame in the sixties. But Liza comes into her own when she wraps the warmth of her voice around (to name only a few of the highlights) the Streisand penned ‘Evergreen’, Marvin Hamlisch’s ‘The Way We Were’, Randy Newman’s ‘I’ll Be Home’ and the gorgeous ‘I Wish You Love’, half sung in French to the solo accompaniment of Atkin’s accordion.
The set list is peppered with anecdotal banter giving us an insight into her own, and also, Streisand’s career and personal life. Her self-deprecatory manner with the audience is relaxed and engaging, yet at times does feel as precisely orchestrated as the songs. But there is no denying her command of the material and her affection covers not just every note of the tunes but extends to her musicians and to the audience.
I must admit, I was fearing an evening of schmaltz, but with Pulman’s early operatic background and later career in Musical Theatre, she sweeps away the undertones with her heartfelt renditions. You don’t need to be a fan of Streisand to appreciate Liza Pulman’s performance. You don’t need to be a fan of the sometimes middle-of-the-road material, nor a fan of cabaret or Musical Theatre, or Hollywood. But after ninety minutes in Liza’s company, you will almost certainly become a fan of her.
Dad’s Army Radio Hour begins with a cod-BBC radio announcement, introducing the first episode of the evening. This sets the tone for the evening; David Benson (Boris World King) and Jack Lane perform three radio adaptations of classic Dad’s Army scripts. As radio plays, the performance itself is a stripped-back affair, featuring no props or set pieces, and relying purely on the script and impersonations to engage the audience.
The impersonations are utterly uncanny. Lane in particular, already well known for the critically acclaimed Wisdom of a Fool, not only nails the voices, but observes the facial characteristics of the original characters with stunning accuracy. His imitation of Arthur Lowe’s Captain Mainwaring perfectly captures the toadlike double chin and swirling-eyed incredulity, and in the next instant transforms into the blithering Jones. Unfortunately, while Lane’s switching between distinctive characters is faultless, some of Benson’s sections, in which he voices multiple similar-sounding characters, can become muddled.
The episodic sitcom presentation of the show is handled perfectly. While other theatrical performances make use of lighting effects and set changes to establish scene changes, Dad’s Army Radio Hour achieves this purely through audio; by moving toward and further from the microphone, Lane (in particular) creates the effect of fading in and fading from a scene. However skilful, it sometimes feels as though Dad’s Army Radio Hour’s obedience to the conventions of radio plays is a hindrance rather than a help. More than one episode relies on visuals and slapstick, which naturally do not translate brilliantly to a purely vocal performance. These moments in particular feel like missed opportunities for laughs, where otherwise the audience reacts to jokes mostly with appreciative chuckles rather than uproar.
Benson and Lane are tight performers and have no intention of going off-script. This is a shame, because during one ad-libbed line-flub, the pair reveal themselves to be charismatic performers rather than persuasive facsimiles – and get the biggest laugh of the evening. At no point does Dad’s Army Radio Hour intentionally go beyond its self-appointed remit. While a skilful and charming production in its own right, this is Dad’s Army for purists at all costs; it’s an affectionate and accurate recreation of a fifty year-old sitcom with nothing added and very little taken away.
