The Drury Lane was full and the show was about 3 hours long. Mr Sondheim was not present and spoke to us via a recording at the top of the 2nd part of the evening. He said he had a lot of deadlines to meet and a new musical to finish for next year and thanked everyone from the front of the house to the back of the house, the performers, the musicians,the choreographer, the director and producer. It was a very generous appreciation of all the hard work that went into the evening and he ended with line from Gypsy, Mr. conductor if you please, not sure I have it right.
Some of the highlights for me,
The opening number People Who Like Sondheim was performed by Kit and McConnel and was quite funny and the audience loved both the song and the performances.
Move On reunited Daniel Evans and Anna Francolini, who did the recent revival of Sunday both in London and New York and they still have such a strong emotional connection with each other. Their performance was so moving and had me in tears. That was followed up by them singing Sunday along with a huge chorus.
Can That Boy Foxtrot was done as full out production number sung and danced by Bonnie Langford and her dance partner Anton Du Beke and group of male dancers. It was truly amazing, funny, sexy and sensual. It was a revelation to me since I had never thought of it as a big dance number. Hope it shows up on You tube.
Millicent Martin sang, I Never Do Anything Twice and boy did she love performing it and the audience adored her. They ended the evening with what they announced were 11 O'Clock numbers in their respective shows, which was really not accurate. The first being Broadway Baby which occurs early in Follies, and for me was the weakest moment in the evening, followed by Send In The Clowns, Losing My Mind, I'm Still Here, again really not an 11 O'Clock number and lastly Being Alive sung by Michael Xavier who brought the house down.
All in all a really great tribute to Mr. Sondheim and it raised a lot of money for The Stephen Sondheim Society and a really interesting charity named The Silver Line.
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