This evening I was treated to a ticket to see Patti LuPone play a rare show in London, in the middle of the third row, no less. She's doing a short run of music and chat, singing her big songs and talking about her career with Seth Rudetsky.I saw Patti in 'Gypsy' on Broadway in 2008 but that's really all I know about her, other than she's a big musical theatre star on both sides of the Atlantic. Clearly, I was in a minority in the audience since everyone seemed to know and love every song. She was interviewed by Seth who also played the piano for her songs and they work well together.
Patti talks about the shows she's been in - the successes and failures - and sings some of her biggest songs at random. She tells the story of her career in a series of memories prompted by Seth's questions, going off at tangents as she remembers anecdotes and experiences. She's got a nice line in name dropping patter.
The show isn't rehearsed (so we're told) with Seth suggesting songs at random and a couple of times Patti had to be reminded of the lyrics or held the lyrics as she sang. We had songs from all her big shows as well as some randoms from her cabaret shows, like 'I Regret Everything' from her Piaf show. Everyone seemed to get very excited about her singing songs from 'Evita', 'Les Miserables' and from 'Sunset Boulevard' but my favourite was a song from Sondheim's 'Company'.
Patti's second encore song was 'Ladies Who Lunch' at the start of which she was given a martini to sip on. She sang it slightly sloshed as a woman with too much money and time to kill, very believable and then, at the end of the song, she threw the contents of her glass over the audience in the front rows, including me! Patti LuPone threw her martini over me! Well, it was just water, really, but I'll remember it as martini. A rather damp me applauded.
Patti has an astonishing voice and the tales to go with it so, if you get the chance, go and see her. Who knows when she'll be back in London?
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