Noël Coward isn’t an obvious choice for a musical retrospective, but he did compose a slew of witty ditties in his time. Many of the songs he wrote with with Gertrude Lawrence in mind. The two met as childhood actors and Sheridan Morley’s 1983 show, with the aid of diary, letter and play extracts, tracks their interlinking lives.
On press night, Thom Southerland’s production suffered a false start, with a gramophone crackling forlornly in the shadows for a good ten minutes. It never really recovered.
Ben Stock is a strong pianist and he performs the jaunty, rhythmic numbers well. But he’s a little restrained and misses that expansive, self-indulgent flair that any Coward impersonator should possess.
Helena Blackman, a runner-up in ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?’, is this show’s star attraction. She has a nicely textured voice and her solo numbers are emotionally rich but her voice sounds a tad over-trained in such intimate surroundings.
Crucially, the two don’t merge well; Blackman’s polished voice slides over but never really synchronises with Stock’s softer tone. Their harmonies sound hollow and their chemistry is equally flat.