The music soundtrack of your life in 90 minutes
Elton John has been part of our cultural landscape for so long that generations have grown up with his music and The Little Red Company’s new show Your Song pays tribute to that in the most wonderful way.
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Last night I watched my life flash before my eyes. Or maybe flash is the wrong word. I mean it took 90 minutes after all, quite a long flash.
The Little Red Company’s new show, Your Song, a tribute to the music of Elton John and what it means to us, encapsulates every emotion you have ever experienced. Elton John has been in the background of my life since I was a teenager and judging from the reaction of the audience at The Judith Wright Arts Centre for the premiere last night I was in the company of a crowd of people for whom that was also true.
The subtitle of the show is The Music You Know - The Stories You Don’t and director Naomi Price (who stays behind the scenes on this one dammit) and the team have gathered first-person accounts of what Elton John’s songs mean to people. They have then woven these accounts rather brilliantly into the show with the singers telling other people’s stories ... some sad, some funny, some a tad excruciating, like the one about the woman who got married on rollerskates and then cheated on her husband. Oh well, these things happen.
Using real stories is what they also do in Come From Away the musical playing at QPAC right now. This methodology could be hokey but in both shows it works a treat.
The cast of this show is Andy Cook, Marcus Corowa, Luke Kennedy and Irena Lysiuk (touch of the Kylie’s about her) and they are backed by a hot trio - Mik Easterman on drums, Michael Manikus on piano (an important role in an Elton show) and OJ Newcomb on guitar.
We’ve seen these musos before in other shows by this outfit and they are terrific.
To play all of Elton’s hits would take days so what we get is a curated vignette of the life’s work of one of the most extraordinary performers of the 20th and 21st century. And let’s not forget that the words matter as well as the tunes and those words were written by Bernie Taupin who has worked with Elton since the beginning. I think even Elton would admit he couldn’t have done it without Bernie. Respect.
The songs are of course rollicking ... like Crocodile Rock and I’m Still Standing and they are heartfelt and reflective such as Your Song and Sorry Seems to be The Hardest Word. And of course there’s the anthem for Marilyn Monroe which turned into the anthem for Princess Diana and that’s a moving highlight.
The singers are all terrific in their own way. We know Luke Kennedy is one of our finest crooners and Andy Cook’s booming voice and vitality is amazing while Irena Lysiuk is a real party girl on stage and seems to be loving every minute of it. Meanwhile we also have Marcus Corowa and this guy is very special. He’s my new soul man. What a beautiful voice.
I don’t get to hear Elton John’s songs that often nowadays but listening to them again back to back was a treat accompanied by a home movie playing in my head of my life, punctuated by this incredible music.
Rocket Man in particular touched a nerve. It came out when I was in my mid-teens and that’s a bittersweet time of life, n’est-ce pas?
What a show! And great to see the Judith Wright Arts Centre coming back to life again after extensive renovations. This is the venue where it all started for The Little Red Company with Naomi Price starring in her one woman Adele tribute Rumour Has It. The good news for fans of that show is that it’s coming back this year for one night only on June 17 at QPAC. As for me, I’m not even vaguely interested in Adele. But Elton John, well that’s another story.
Your Song, Until May 1, Judith Wright Arts Centre, Fortitude Valley ; thelittleredcompany.com
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