A LIVE STREAM WITH LEE MEAD: ON WITH THE SHOW (Brasserie Zedel/Crazy Coqs)*****

By Louise

Link: https://www.brasseriezedel.com/events/lee-mead

Available until: 6^th November at 9pm

Lee Mead is best-known for winning Any Dream Will Do when I was eighteen months old, but he has also had a very wide-ranging career in musicals, concerts, pantomimes and plays. I really enjoyed his ‘A carppella’ concerts in his car on Instagram Live earlier in lockdown, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in a full-length concert with accompanists. I really hope it won’t be the last time because he is very good.

His accompanists at this concert are both called Adam – Adam Dennis, his MD, plays the piano and Adam Goldsmith plays the guitar. They are both really good musicians and very sensitive to the nuances of Mr Mead’s voice so it was extra lovely hearing them play for him

Mr Mead is really good at talking to his audience. He’s really natural and friendly and genuine. I love the way he jokes with his audience and the way he really enjoys performing for us. It has been a very long time.

Mr Mead opens his concert with All I Care About from Chicago. His characterisation is brilliant and he shows it in his voice as well as in his acting. He can’t whistle, but neither can I. I used to feel a bit embarrassed about that, but I think if Lee Mead can’t do it, maybe it isn’t that important.

I won’t tell you the names of the other songs Mr Mead sings. I enjoyed watching the concert and not knowing what he was going to do next. But I’m sure you can guess some of them from my review.

Throughout the night, Mr Mead takes on a number of musical theatre roles, including Dr Pomatter in Waitress - Mr Mead sings his own adaption of a duet with some very amusing ad-libs. He also gives a very moving performance as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, though I don’t think Mr Mead looks old enough to have a daughter who’s old enough to get married. I think he could still play Marius. He also sings a song from Blood Brothers, which I was supposed to be in this year. I hope we can do it next year, but if not, it was a great experience to rehearse it. Mr Mead sings the song really beautifully.

Mr Mead also sings lots of songs by older pop artists like The Beach Boys and Take That. The Beach Boys song is very heartfelt and really beautiful to listen to. I enjoyed the Take That song. It is true that one combination of words is repeated very often, but it doesn’t sound repetitive when Mr Mead sings it. He also sang a lovely song by Paul McCartney, who was in The Beatles.

There’s also a really gorgeous, emotional performance of a song that reminds Mr Mead of his grandparents, a lovely Tom Walker song and a song which Adele has covered.

But the best surprise of the night is when Mr Mead performs a song he co-wrote! He is right about Mr Dennis’ beautiful melody, but the song also has beautiful lyrics.

It is a really wonderful concert and Mr Mead only had about a week to prepare for it, which must have been difficult, especially when he’s out of practice with concerts, but he does really well. I can’t wait for his next concert.