Love Musically

For their Spring Concert, Northallerton Musical Theatre Company turned to members Jasmine and Laurence Lorriman to come up with a theme and following their own recent marriage and newborn arrival, Love was a perfect choice. Now concerts can be very stop and start so the two created and wrote a lovely story to the theme taking us on a wonderful journey through a great selection of wonderfully chosen hits from the stage.

Love Musically could sound cheesy and mushy however the concert and storylines did not just focus on couples and romance but delved into much deeper themes of friendship, parenthood and indeed even grief and the direction and acting from the cast really embraced the storylines created for them.

The cast of twenty adults and 7 Juniors were busy throughout the whole show whether in large ensemble numbers, their own solos or small extracts in larger numbers cleverly devised by the company's new Musical Director Robert Drane, a previous performer on stage with the group. Robert led a good-sized orchestra through a lot of very tricky pieces, the live music really adding a great depth to the show. It was obvious that a lot of work had been spent on the music and vocals for the show as Jasmine and Laurence had selected some huge and overly complicated pieces for the show - all brilliantly handled by very accomplished performers. The spread of songs taking us on a journey from Queen to the Moulin Rouge; from Wicked to Ghost and everything in between. 

The show opened with a very apt opening number “Somebody To Love” with the ensemble giving the number some real gusto with lead vocals from Emma Browne and a very impressive Natasha Hickling, one of many new faces to the Society in this show. Showing the versatility in the numbers chosen we then headed to the musical version of the most famous love story ever written, Romeo and Juliet, with a lovely medley from West Side Story. The harmonies in this medley, as they did in the whole production, really shone through with the strong female ensemble in particular really blending together perfectly. 

The Junior ensemble, despite having only one main section of their own songs, a very naughty and cheeky Matilda medley, were used heavily throughout the whole show, interacting with the adults to create some lovely visual scenes and building on the strong themes of love and family. 

The men, although small in numbers with just five in total certainly made up for it in quality adding some lovely balance to the bigger numbers and all of them getting spotlights with solo work. It was excellent to see Rob Oakley take a more centre stage in this show, his vocals really standing strong against more experienced performers. His Trio with Joshua Hicks and Will Jackson in Dear Theodosia was a real standout number for the men and very moving. 

Joshua Hicks really took on some hard numbers in the show, the highlight being where he teamed up with Kim Boagey to perform the incredibly complex Elephant Love Medley. Both handled the mixture of music in the track and tricky timings really well with Kim’s vocals absolutely shining with some gorgeous range and tone to her voice. 

Will Jackson took on a lot of the more comical numbers in the show, bouncing around on the stage in the most lively number of the show Flash Bang Wallop, surrounded by a cast having the time of their lives in the wedding scene. He paired up with the ever-impressive Ruth Asquith for the smash hit Paradise by the Dashboard Light as the Duo got Act Two off to a blast. It was lovely to see him show off his softer and more romantic side in a beautiful duet, again with Ruth in Make My Heart Fly from Sunshine on Leith. Both of their voices blended together beautifully with Will’s lower range mixing excellently with Ruth’s lovely Soprano voice.

Andy Cunningham as we have come to love, brought more elegance and class to the show pairing up with Kathryn Laverick in a comical yet soft and tender I remember it well. Wonderfully sung and performed by these two.

Now there is clear strength and depth to the female side of NMTC and with new additions joining the ranks for this Concert it just got even stronger. The range of songs performed by this talented group was excellent showing off real versatility to their talents.

Natash Hickling and Emily Hobbs teamed up to give us a knockout performance of Take Me or Leave Me, the quality of the vocals almost as strong as the brilliant acting and characterisation from both ladies. Lucille Skinner and Lauren Brady brought the humour, and amazing vocals to the show with a genius Song That Goes like This, both singers excelling in both attitude, range, and characterisation in this number.

Now with a scripted concert it allows the performers to really get into a number in more depth, with a story behind the song they can feel the meaning in it and in two numbers in particular from the Females this really came across. Ruth’s performance of With You from Ghost was so tender and soft, the story dedicated to the theme of loss and her father. The clever direction of the silhouette scenes behind of her as a child and her father excellently devised and carried off. Hannah Hamilton absolutely wowed me with her rendition of Heart of Stone from Six. Not only were her vocals sensational but she brought versatility, depth and passion to the piece gradually building it up through the number. 

With quality like this in the vocalists it was no surprise that when they teamed up the sound was absolutely gorgeous. Emma Browne, Isobel Davidson, and Kathryn Laverick gave us a beautiful version of Slipping through my fingers, all three singers voices shining through. Jess Burgess-Drane, Hannah Hamilton and Eilidh McMillan teamed up for a gorgeous performance of I’m Not That Girl with the song not only pitch perfect but believable with the acting and direction of the number.

Jasmine and Laurence did a brilliant job of directing and choreographing this show. With lots of huge numbers, they still managed to make sure that the Ensemble numbers had the wow factor in dance and movement and the Finale Two numbers were a perfect example of that. 500 Miles brought the whole cast together in excellent synchronisation and a lively routine whilst Spread The Love Around was the perfect number to close the show. Every cast member had the routine nailed and it was just the perfect ending to a magical evening.

Putting together a scripted concert is never an easy task, you are never sure if it will work or not but please rest easy it most certainly worked. The small sub-plots helped the show flow along at great pace with no breaks in the action, the links helped give the songs meaning and overall, it gave the whole evening the feeling of a production and not just a concert. How the pair of you have managed all of that along with a newborn is gob-smacking but to the whole production team and a very talented cast a huge well done, we were certainly all feeling the Love for NMTC tonight and I can’t wait to join you on-board the S.S American in October for Anything Goes.

 

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