SOPHIE TUCKER'S ONE NIGHT STAND. To 14 January.

London

SOPHIE TUCKER’S ONE NIGHT STAND
by Chris Burgess

New End Theatre 27 New End NW3 To 14 January 2006
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sat & Sun 3.30pm
Runs

TICKETS: 0870 033 2733
www.newendtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 December

Red-hot show direct from limbo.
Russian-born Jewish-American singer Sophie Tucker made singing a belt-and-braces job: she belted out the tunes, audiences braced their ears for the shock-waves of sound. Chris Burgess reviews her life from the vantage-point of the after-life. Sophie, always a big girl (Burgess might have made more of her offer to do a limbo-dance in limbo), finds herself stuck awaiting the verdict on whether she’s to be condemned to Eternity in heaven or allowed to join her friends down below.

She’s worked her ticket to the other place: deserting infant son Bert for her career, married several times (‘Tucker’ by husband one) and keeping regular pianist Ted Shapiro 45 years without a contract. Add the unheavenly blue humour with which she revived a career knocked by the Talkies and there’s little fear of salvation.

The idea of the audience as angel-jurors is disappointingly dropped for a weak final joke. Otherwise Burgess offers an efficient lope through the life of this ‘Last of the Red-Hot Mammas’. It’s not uncritical yet stays affectionate in portraying someone dedicated to singing, both as escape from slaving over a hot stove (like her mother, in the family restaurant – Sophie was determined to release her own momma from that red-hot slavery) and for love of the job itself.

Sue Kelvin portrays the fires that conquered audiences (Sophie was no schmoozing chantoose). And defined her one early set-back. Sacked for out-starring the show’s star, Tucker lost her voice for weeks. Everything else (including insults back home for deserting Bert) she took in her substantial stride.

The singing’s splendid. ‘Shine On, Harvest Moon’ shows Kelvin’s ability to build from near-casual start to mighty climax. Her voice never feels stretched at full-throttle and has the intensity that made numbers like ‘My Yiddeshe Mama’ Sophie standards.

Russell Churney’s far more than accompanist, being adept at deflating remarks and sharp reminders. Ted was the background against which Sophie blazed; Churney makes this apparently blank personality, the ‘beanpole’ to Sophie’s rounded-figure, integral to the story.

If the old standards, comic, emotional, lyrical, and always full-frontal, are your thing, look no further than New End.

Sophie Tucker: Sue Kelvin
Ted Shapiro/others: Russell Churney

Director: Susie McKenna
Designer: Lotte Collett
Lighting: Philip Gladwell
Musical arrangements: Russell Churney
Musical supervision: Mark Warman
Costume: David Blight

2005-12-13 10:51:50