Painted from Memory

Cabaret is all the rage right now. As Barry Humphries’ Adelaide Cabaret Festival draws to a close and Melbourne’s version ramps up, Sydney’s Hayes Theatre, which has proved the power of small-scale musicals, has been holding its own season. Michael Falzon and Bobby Fox, best known for starring in the musicals We Will Rock You and Jersey Boys, are once again performing their concert version of the 1998 Elvis Costello-Burt Bacharach album Painted from Memory. This time, they’re in an intimate venue (they performed the concert last year at Sydney’s City Recital Hall and are also heading to the Melbourne Recital Centre next month).

Falzon and Fox both have great voices and they’re technically faultless. Falzon has a sweet tenor tone; Fox too, slightly edgier. It would be nice to see them shed their musical theatre backgrounds and become even more edgy: this is Elvis Costello, after all.

The purer ballads like  “God Give Me Strength” (Falzon) and “I Still Have That Other Girl” (Fox) are highlights, as is Christy Sullivan, when she steps forward from back-up to belt out the Bacharach classic “Anyone Who Had a Heart”.

The string quartet and pianist are brilliant, adding depth and power to the songs. They’re more than just accompanists and sometimes even overpower the voices. This is not their fault, nor probably that of the sound designer, but probably the limitations of this tiny theatre. Recital halls probably give these performers the acoustics they deserve.

It’s a shame, too, that in this 120-seat theatre, Jonathan Biggins didn’t make the show more intimate. His simple direction could well make sense in a recital hall but here – as part of a cabaret festival – it feels too formal. Some patter between the songs would have been nice: Fox and Falzon could tell us about the songs they’re singing, at the very least. An intimate theatre like the Hayes allows performers to connect closely with an audience but this show didn’t make the most of this.

Those points aside, Falzon and Fox, along with Sullivan and their instrumentalists, give polished and likeable performances in a tight, smart show. Musically it’s superb; I’d like to see it in a concert hall.

Peter Gotting