Broadway Baby!

After wowing audiences at Ginger’s last September and October with Mark Trevorrow and Bev Kennedy in their show Old Friends Sing Sundays, Rupert Noffs returned to Ginger’s last night for his very first one man show. And what a night! The room was packed, the atmosphere buzzing – and the show itself was everything the audience expected it to be.

Noffs has a charisma that comes from far more than his singing and acting. There is a ‘boy next door’ charm about the guy, a naïveté and honesty that belies his ‘off stage’ achievements: his unending charity work for the Noffs Foundation (his grandfather Ted Noffs founded the Wayside Chapel); establishing Gideon Shoes; and the Lucky Bee restaurant he ran for seven years in New York with his husband Matty. And yet he remains totally unaffected, completely genuine.

Even as he introduces his show, he seems to be wondering “how did I get here?” - yet Noffs is Conservatorium and NIDA trained, has worked in the UK and New York and has just completed a national tour with Mark Trevorrow celebrating forty years of Trevorrow’s ‘other self’, Bob Downe.

So Noffs is at home on the stage, as an accomplished performer and a storyteller, and he charmed last night’s audience with a range of musical theatre songs interspersed with personal anecdotes, told with expert timing and humour … and the wonderful support of Bev Kennedy at the piano.

Regarded as one of Australia’s leading Musical Directors & accompanists, Kennedy is at ease with classical, jazz, pop and musical theatre. A tiny figure with an enormous energy and stamina, Kennedy is in every moment with Noffs, as he moves between Sondheim, Cole Porter, Kander and Ebb, and Stephen Schwartz. She is brilliant accompanist, watching, following, listening and adding titbits as Noffs talks …

About growing up with musical theatre, playing Tony in West Side Story at school, dressing the windows in the charity shop, meeting Matty in Hull, setting up the restaurant in New York … and taking Matty’s Bao Buns to Barbra Streisand! All told with perfect comic timing and ne’er a moment of artifice.

Noffs had promised a little “interference” from Mark Trevorrow at the end of the show – and it was a delight to hear them sing “Sara Lee” again! – but Noffs had two other special guests as well.

Making her first professional performance was Isabelle Venice, a recent graduate from the Conservatorium’s Bachelor of Musical Theatre Course. Isabelle sang the very beautiful “Meadowlark” from the The Baker's Wife by Stephen Schwartz and “Watch What Happens” from Menen and Feldman’s Newsies. She was accompanied by a very proud Bev Kennedy who teaches at the Con.

Noffs also welcomed his one-time NIDA colleague Marney McQueen, fresh from her role as Celine Dion in Titanique. Resplendent in a striking tangerine suit McQueen introduced the audience to “For the Gaze” from the Broadway musical Death Becomes Her.

From “Broadway Baby” to “Not While I'm Around”, (for his mother Mandy who has Alzheimer’s disease), to “Music That Makes Me Dance" (for Matty) and back to “Broadway Baby”, Rupert Noffs made his first solo performance a musical theatre tour de force.

Rupert, Bev and Mark Trevorrow will be back at Ginger’s on Sunday nights 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd and 29^th March with a new Old Friends show … with guests! There’ll be a special ‘celebrity’ guest each week, as well as some “rising stars” like Isabelle. If last night is any indication, every night will a great musical journey.

Carol Wimmer

Tickets are on sale now at bobdowne.com

Image: Mark Trevorrow, Marney McQueen, Bev Kennedy, Isabelle Venice and Rupert Noffs