The Color Purple in Concert

CC9, Stalls.

And I'm Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere

I'm here! Enjoy everyone!

My gaydar is going wild. Even more than at a typical west end show.

Dialogue and lighting not the best, but music UNBELIEVABLE. Truly exceptional all round

I cried at the act 1 finale too

I hope the Cadogan has a mop!

Full details here: www.cadoganhall.com/event/the-color-purple-170521/

The sound got better in the 2nd act. I did not care at all for the guy who played Mister. Everyone else, brilliant. I only really knew the one song everyone knows from this.....all the others were new and i loved the score. Especially with those voices. Also, i must say, that when it comes to shows i have a bit of a cold heart and don't really feel the emotion but there were times in this... lord were there times. I think especially towards the end of act 1 and I am Here.

Marisha, i think i can understand the appeal. She gave it her all, you could tell she was lost in it, in her big numbers she let rip and you absolutely felt it which is why she got such a big reaction. I just think it's at the determent of her voice because even though the performance was amazing sometimes the singing was off and actually rather screamy at times. A loss of control and especially towards the end on I Am Here. Maybe i just had Cynthia too much in my mind as i have listened to every recording probably possible of her singing that and it's always note perfect. I guess this was just a more wild take on it. But i did love her and do see how she would make a great Effie.

Rachel John, another one i saw after a lot of buzz on here about her...she blew me away with her voice. I can see how she played Rachel Marron as her voice reminded me of Whitney. She was sensational.

Tyrone great, i have seen him before and his voice is brilliant and a word for the young lady who played Nettie who i thought was brilliant and a bit of a star and of course Wendy Mae Brown who provided some great comedy moments.

The band were great too.

All round i was really pleased to see this and impressed. I must say this is the first time i have seen something like this, a concert performance of a show, so it took me a while to get used to the format but i soon got quite into it. It makes me very interested to see the full stages show as i think it would be even better, obviously, but i guess that's not on the cards.

Were you in a light blue patterned short sleeve shirt Daniel? If so, i saw you. If you weren't. I didn't.

Breathtakingly brilliant one-off show, with a stand-out star-turn by Marisha Wallace, and sterling supporting performances by Rachel John, Wendy Mae Brown, Seyi Omooba, Tyrone Huntley and Bernadette Bangura.

The key to Wallace's performance as Celie was to be found in her final solo song, in which her stealthily modulated build to her ultimate declaration of personhood, "I'm Here," had the audience on their feet in an instant standing ovation. Wallace had until this point reserved the full impact of her devastatingly full and emotional voice, as her tender, tentative Celie had until this point been cowed by the batterings, both figurative and literal, of her horrible story. From the start, Wallace played the hollow-eyed dazed soft vacancy of a battered woman to perfection, which hollowness she filled in slow gradations throughout the course of the show. By halftime, her character was still only half human, causing some in the audience to doubt the fullness of the actress' potential. But this methodical character building was a testament to the seriousness with which Wallace approached tonight's show as a fully acted performance, rather than a mere one-off opportunity for show-boating, and judging by the fullsome tears of multiple audience members all around me, she succeeded in taking the audience with her on the journey of a nobody to become a somebody! The most emotionally fulfilling performance in a musical I've seen all year!

All around her were supporting performances to die for: there was the effortless easy comedy sass of Wendy Mae Brown's Sofia, making hilarious hay of her anthem "Hell No;" there was the dominating diva antics of Rachel John's Shug, whose Push Da Button" brought the house down in the first half, but who also evinced heartbreaking tenderness in her song "Too Beautiful for Words;" there was the preternatural sweetness of Seyi Omooba's beaming Nettie, with a dulcet voice that belied her toughness in the recent "Junkyard;" and there was Tyrone Huntley's magical charisma, making up for the man-hating book, by lending Harpo a softness and likeability he doesn't have on the page, thereby balancing the misandry of the show as a whole. Of the wonderful 3 strong church lady chorus, all with exceptional voices, on the right of the stage, Bernadette Bangura, in the centre, stood out for her total passionate emotional commitment to every song!

The sound mix was a little hollow and tinny, which tended to make the bass voices of the men a little harder to hear, but nonetheless, Cavin Cornwall as Mister, was a force of nature, never more so than in his body-rolling, wide-grinning cackling excitement about "Shug Avery Comin ' to Town." LOL.

Anyway, I enjoyed this much more than when I first saw the show at the Menier, partly on account of being more familiar with the work, partly for being less bothered by all the manhating, but mostly because this was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime star ensemble cast that really understood the work and all their parts in it, and made the whole night so much more than the sum of it's parts!

Truly, my favourite night of the year so far!

5 stars