Side Show in Concert - London Palladium

Holy smokes!

Bradley Jaden turned the scoundrel, Terry, into some majestic tortured soul that simply tore the Palladium apart.

Frozen still, facing the audience, unable to even make eye contact with Louise Dearman's Daisy, you could feel the entire Palladium audience hold their breaths, and shrink into themselves as Jaden's "Private Conversation" (the show highlight by a memorable mile) became an impassioned public confession of impassioned self-hatred, that rivalled any passionate Phantom ever, his modulated voice building to towering crescendos of searing passion, before turning to Dearman's Daisy, falling into her duet and her chest like a lost child, only, on her exit, to face the audience again and resume his crestfallen tear-filled tenor crying confession of his emotional inadequacy that must have hit the back of the circle like a delayed thunderbolt. And at last, the audience could breathe again to release the most rousing pent-up ovation of the evening. . .

Earlier, in the first half, before the interval, it had seemed as if the loudest ovation would belong to Trevor Dion-Nicholas's Jake's furious Paul-Robeson-esque trilling trembling commanding bass warning to the twins about sticking to "The Devil You Know."

But they allowed Bradley Jaden's wolf in, to the eternal gratitude of the audience, if not themselves lol.

If I'm honest, I think this piece worked dramatically better as a chamber piece at the Southwark Playhouse, where the differences between the personalities of the twins were under the microscope of the huddled intimate audience. Laura Pitt-Pulford's sensitive Violet could make the smallest wincing reactions to the diva antics of Dearman's brash confident Daisy, her every expression registering as if Bambi's mother was being repeatedly shot.

At the Palladium, the venue is simply too big for that sort of minutiae to even register, so a great deal of the character conflict between the twins is lost. And that drama is the greater part of the drama of the whole show.

Still, having two great theatrical divas belt brilliant songs together is it's own reward, and Dearman's and Tucker's "I Will Never Leave You" brought the house down, so beloved is the song, so beloved are the actors, and so powerfully did they belt. While the intimacy of the characters speaking of their love for each other was lost (they mostly faced the audience) the power of those divas' love for the audience was brilliantly found, and merited the second most powerful ovation of the evening.

Although she never got a dramatic moment, Gina Murray's astounding belt was it's own moment lol.

Anyhow, for two wonderful divas, for Trevor Dion-Nicholas, and most of all, for Bradley Jaden turning Terry into the Phantom, that was a heck of a fun night! 4 stars from me.