All Over the World

This concert began with an invitation to take an aeroplane ride by two comely air hostesses.  The concert featured a plethora of musical numbers, from many eras and in many styles only touching briefly on musical theatre, which made a pleasant change.  The audience, sitting at tables set up in a cabaret style, joined in with those songs they knew, depending upon their generation.  All and all, a show everybody present enjoyed. 
 
The show opened and (apart from a finale featuring the whole cast) closed with a couple of Sinatra songs performed by Ian Drever – Come Fly With Me and It’s Nice to Go Travelling.  In between, we visited South America with Jon Blakey-Mole, Luke Elliott and Carla Dupree.  Next, Gareth Graham took us to Italy two numbers followed by a trip to France with Luke Elliott and Ashley Waugh, Ruana Sutton, Pamela Alderson and a group of cheeky Can Can dancers.  A comedy number called Cheap Flights was a hoot and we covered China, Russia and Japan before landing in New York for a medley to close Act One. 
 
I was impressed by the number of individuals who occupied the stage alone, or almost alone, to perform their numbers.  Popular songs, from all different eras, are not always as easy to perform as most of us think.  Here, they were carried off with considerable aplomb, with the performers getting clearly more confident as the proceedings developed.  There were also some very amusing comedy numbers from, amongst others, Marion Faulkner.

Act Two took us to Australia (Waltzing Matilda from Gareth Graham, I Should be so Lucky from Enya Dupree and Holly Hutchinson), Canada (?) (I’m a Lumberjack and I Don’t Care from Gareth), England (A Foggy Day from Carla Dupree, Waterloo Sunset from almost the full cast, London by Night from Ian Drever), Spain (Barcelona from Sarah Healy and Jon Blakey-Mole), Argentina (Don’t Cry for Me … from Caroline Kemp which deserved a special mention), Germany (Have You Ever Heard the German Band from Gareth which also deserved a special mention,  Guten Tag Hop Clop from almost the full company) and back to the US for a spirited finale preceded by a medley of pop and rock n roll classics from the full cast.  Right up my street and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Once again, the set was designed by Mike Austin, this time featuring holiday/travel posters of several of the featured destinations with a central video screen featuring colourful photographs all the destinations, setting the scene perfectly for each number.  All in all, a most enjoyable evening.

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