A Cole Porter & Marvin Hamlisch Wymsical

The ‘Encore ’group provided another interesting selection of numbers from two more composers enhancing yet further their growing repertoire. A great opening company tap number from ‘Anything Goes’ led by Kaitlyn Norwood set the tempo for a total of 17 numbers – apologies for not mentioning every-one here! Lucy Allsop provided a poignant ‘Nothing’ from ‘A Chorus Line’ and Sam Nield, Clara Davies, Cameron Morris and Beth Lawson sang a ‘deloverly’ quartet from Cole Porter’s ‘Red Hot & Blue’. This was followed by a tuneful and wistful ‘Disneyland’ from Ashman / Hamlisch’s ‘Smile’, sung by Georgie Levine. There was some nice harmony in the company number “Typical High School Senior’ from the same production.                                                                                                    

Jess Young has a lovely voice and gave us an excellent ‘The Way We Were’ from the show of the same name and the short scene from ‘One’ (‘A Chorus Line’) – Isaac McManus, Lucy Allsop, Linus Hughes and company - added some depth to the overall production. I liked Sylvie Symons rendition of ‘The Tale of The Oyster’ from Cole Porter’s  ‘Fifty Million Frenchmen’ – a charming number full of expression.

‘Nobody Does it Better’ from ‘The Spy who loved me’ was sung by Ellie Morris with control and maturity and Lydia Dimmock gave a poised and polished performance with ‘Just One of Those Things’ from ‘Jubilee’. Clara Davies was also excellent and moving with ‘What I did for Love’ from ‘A Chorus Line’ and Phoebe McIntosh led the company number ‘Blow, Gabriel Blow!’ with strength. Bows were stylishly staged by the company singing ‘One’ again, with matching gold hats and their signature black costumes. Lucy Tyrrell, Laura Harding, Megan Jones, Lilah Payton and Rose Shepherd completed the line-up.

Piano, drums and trumpet provided good accompaniment and a simple set provided all that was necessary for this talented group which I always enjoy. 

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