Review: TO MAURY, WITH LOVE at Theatre Royal Drury Lane

While Yeston may not command the headline grabbing attention of Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz or even Andrew Lloyd-Webber, to those who move in the musicals circle, his creation of Nine, Titanic the Musical, Grand Hotel and Death Takes A Holiday, among others, demands celebration.

Back in the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of performing in a production of Nine at the Royal Festival Hall, where Jonathan Pryce took the lead role of Guido Contini and Liliane Montevecchi (who had won a Tony on Broadway for her performance in the original production 10 years earlier) flew over from New York to reprise her role as Liliane La Fleur. We (Joe Bailey Cole the producer, Andrew McBean the director, and I) collected Ms Montevecchi from Heathrow in two limousines. The first was for us to travel back for dinner at Joe Allen’s, where we were greeted by Trevor Nunn and Imogen Stubbs that evening. The second was for the veritable mountain of Louis Vuitton trunks which accompanied the diminutive but immaculately turned-out Ms Montevecchi for her 4 month stint in Grand Hotel due to open at the Dominion in the weeks to come.

Back to the present, and the production team managed to assemble a great line-up for Sunday evening’s event, including the London Musical Theatre Orchestra under the baton of Mark Aspinall backed by the Royal Academy of Music’s Musical Theatre Choir.

To Maury with Love concert. Photo by Eliza Wilmot.

Upstage on a giant screen, various faces appeared in a montage to wish the composer happy birthday, with most just about managing to avoid the usual gushing platitudes although Alan Menken and particularly Jane Krakowski elicited delighted chuckles with their effusive love and praise of the man we were gathered to celebrate. Pity the visuals and audio fell out of synch for most of the projections, but it was a minor gripe in an otherwise terrific evening.

And so to the musical programme where Ramin Karimloo headlined proceedings, delivering Guido’s Song (from Nine) and I Thought That I Could Live (from Death Takes A Holiday) with assured aplomb. Everyone had their moments to shine as the evening progressed and stand-outs for me (in an evening of notable belting), were Graham Bickley’s hauntingly gentle delivery of New Words (from In The Beginning), Rob Houchen with his searingly beautiful tonal quality leading the company in One Soul Can Make A Difference (from Club Moscow), Kelly Mathieson’s coquettish raunch in landing A Call From The Vatican (Nine), and an arrangement of Tell Me About Your Wife (Club Moscow) paired with Unusual Way (Nine) performed by Madalena Alberto and Sydnie Christmas. And what better finale than filling the auditorium with the assembled voices including former cast members from various productions of Titanic as they delivered a rousing blast of Sail On.

In contrast to so many of these events, which can plod self-indulgent and outstay their welcome TO MAURY, WITH LOVE started on time and managed to zip along at a decent pace, giving everyone plenty of time to get home while still basking in the glow of a thoroughly wonderful evening. Now, don’t you wish you had been there?