REVIEW: Caroline O’Connor brings a little bit of Broadway to Brisbane

She’s a Broadway star and has played Royal Albert Hall but now calls Queensland home. Find out why you must must drop everything to catch Caroline O’Connor’s new Brisbane show.

What are you doing tonight? Oh, really? Well don’t do that. Do this instead - go and see Caroline O’Connor - From Broadway With Love at the Cremorne Theatre at QPAC.

It’s on tonight and she’s doing two shows on Saturday as well.

You’d be mad to miss her. I’m not going to say she’s a national living treasure because that makes her sound old but she’s certainly a treasure.

O’Connor is one of the most compelling musical theatre stars we have ever produced.

Born in England of Irish parentage (she tells some funny Irish stories in her show) she came to Australia as a child and then went back to the UK to cut her teeth on the West End, then Broadway.

I first saw her in Chicago and she has played both lead roles in that production over the years and so she begins this show with the song we know best from that musical - All That Jazz. And from that moment on she had us all eating out of the palm of her hand although not literally because that wouldn’t be COVID safe, would it?

Caroline O'Connor knocks it out of the park in the Cremorne Theatre at QPAC. Pics by Joel Devereux

To spend an evening in an intimate setting with a star such as this, backed by a hot band is, to quote William Wordsworth, “very heaven”.

Her set list was terrific, there was some Sondheim, she did a Piaf section (she once played Piaf), sang Anything Goes and De-Lovely, the Moulin Rouge Tango (you may recall she was Nini Legs in the Air in that Baz Luhrmann film) and there were plenty of other great tracks. She finished off with Over The Rainbow and Waltzing Matilda, god love her.

One of the last songs she sang was called The Summer’s Gone and it was written by her music director and pianist Daniel Edmonds.

It was utterly gorgeous, a romantic old school jazz ballad. Sinatra or Andy Williams or Mel Torme would happily have added it to their repertoire. or Blossom Dearie perhaps?

Let me mention the musicians - Edmonds is a star himself, local lad Justin Bliss was great on bass, Mark Charters plays drums and O’Connor’s husband and manager Barrie Shaw was on Reeds including clarinet and sax and man he plays a mean sax. I said sax.

Caroline O'Connor singing up a storm in Caroline O’Connor - From Broadway With Love

O’Connor chats a lot during the show which is lovely and she tells stories of her life and some of them she can hardly believe herself including performing at the Royal Albert Hall and treading the boards on Broadway.

She also got to play her idol Ethel Merman in the Cole Porter biopic DeLovely in 2004.

She almost has to pinch herself when she recalls all this.

Nowadays she and Barrie live at Noosa, having moved there just before the pandemic.

She was overseas performing in a spiegeltent in Chicago when everything went pear-shaped and scrambled to get home to Noosa where the couple has been holed up ever since.

This is her first stage appearance since then and her first solo show thanks to artistic director and producer Alex Woodward of Woodward Productions.

When she came on stage she was so grateful to be back she knelt down and kissed the stage floor which made us laugh.

She was genuinely moved to be up there again with an adoring audience in front of her and a hot band behind her. In other words she was in her element and loving it while the audience loved her right back.

qpac.com.au