AN EVENING AT JOE’S: ACT THREE (Joe Allen TV London/Acting for Others/Joe Allen Restaurant)*****

 

By Arran

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XefWZ0R6Mgk

Link to Act 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEtPaI_0iRw&t=5s (Acts 1 and 2 are separate concerts but I thought I’d post the links in case you were wondering why I’d only reviewed Act 3)

Link 2 Act 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTL8QqaxR0Q

Available until: Unknown

I hadn’t heard of Joe Allen the restaurant before lockdown but I thought it had a nice name. One of my favourite footballers is called Joe Allen. So I watched the concerts and it seems like a really lovely place. Imogen says she’s going to go there all the time when she’s a West End star.

In the concerts you get to meet some of the people who work there and then some of the performers who go to the restaurant sing songs on Zoom. This time there were also a lot of people talking about some of their memories of Joe Allen.

They are all really great concerts but they are also fundraisers. They had to close in lockdown because they serve food and obviously because the West End is closed there are no actors to book tables anyway. I hope they raise lots of money and that they can open again soon.

There are lots of famous actors in this concert. Judi Dench opens the show. Gyles Brandreth and Maureen Lipman do their own mini-comedy with Harriet Thorpe (who hosts this concert). A lot of actors including Sir Ian McKellen share their memories of Joe Allen. There is also a Zoom conversation between Chita Rivera and Richard Ridge too. Amanda Barrie and Sherrie Hewson, also on Zoom, insult each other in a really friendly way.

There is some dancing too. There are a couple of tap dances from 42^nd Street outside the National Gallery. It has been raining and the pavement is wet but they are not the first people to sing in the rain and it looked nice dancing on a shiny pavement. The dances are really good. David Bedella sings in the second one, he’s really good. The ballet dancer Edward Watson dances to I Can Give You the Starlight from The Dancing Years. My Auntie Louise was in that. I liked the choreography a lot. It looks quite contemporary.

There is a lot of music from 42^nd Street but I like that musical so it’s okay. Apart from the two group dances which I have already mentioned Evie Rose Lane sings We’re in the Money with Sam Young on the piano. They sing their own version which is quite slow and jazzy with lots of ornamentation. It’s really good. Rachel Stanley sings About a Quarter to Nine. She sings it really beautifully.

There is a lot of music from Chicago too. My mum and Aashiq have both been in that. They both played murderesses. Aashiq says he is sure my mum killed it. Anna Jane Casey sings My Own Best Friend from Chicago and it’s really clever because she’s singing it in a duet with herself and you can see her twice. Jo Goodwin and Robbie MacMillan perform their choreography to Nowadays/Hot Honey Rag.

There is also a really good song which I didn’t know which is performed by Kyle Scatcliffe.

But it is not just the current stars of the West End, it is the future stars too. Some 2020 musical theatre graduates from the Royal Academy of Music. I think that is such a nice thing to do. Maybe venues could do things like that every year for any graduates who haven’t found work yet. I hope there won’t be a pandemic ever again but not every graduate will find it easy to find work and something like this would be a really good experience.

It is a really good concert. I enjoyed it.