FringeReview UK 2024
Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret
Jermyn Street Theatre
Genre: Adaptation, Cabaret, Fringe Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Jermyn Street Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret, written and devised by her, and musically directed by Jordan Paul Clarke comes to Jermyn Street Theatre till September 28th.
Who could object to its urgency, or its starry messenger? A gem.
Till September 28th. Dee concludes this leg of her London tour at the Playground off Latimer Road on 29th.
Review
When ‘On a Clear Day’ is followed by Tom Lehrer’s ‘Poisoning Pigeons in the Park’ sand there’s a very different twist to Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’, you know it’s a hot world in here. Time for a Green one. “Do you amend it then. It lies in you” and we encounter Oberon’s and Titania’s words later. Janie Dee’s Beautiful World Cabaret, written and devised by her, and musically directed by Jordan Paul Clarke comes to Jermyn Street Theatre till September 28th.
It’s the most beguiling and urgent cabaret this season. Previously acclaimed with a string of five-stars at Edinburgh’s Pleasance during the Festival, Dee concludes this leg of her London tour at the Playground off Latimer Road on 29th.
Starting with a moment during a run at the Globe when Dee noticed her daughters marching against climate change during a run in the Dream we’re give a personal tug through those life-changing moments of Dee’s life and how art imitates life. She later gives the whole of Titania’s now urgent eco-catastrophe speech.
What makes this cabaret special, though is Dee’s devising: beyond the torch songs, indeed recruiting them. Dee is a fabulous singer, able to scale projection to the intimacy of Jermyn Street as much as the National’s Olivier. She brings to every recitation a kick in her own voice, and with the songs a sudden sprach or dropped tone that is as bewitching as it’s apposite. You hear differently.
Dee glisters with her renowned star quality but also as a confiding storyteller. Again this allows sashaying into a personal voice spliced with interactive badinage. Dee solicits audience opinions, names and tasks them with holding the mic for a moment.
Dee isn’t first on: it’s a cast of six. Sarah Harrison (violin) and Igor Outkine (Accordion and sudden singer of ‘La Mer’) produce an exquisitely-phrased ‘Spring’ from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, orchestrated as a fully-fledged duet. Later they intone several bursts of ‘Winter’ and finally a dance-off with ‘Autumn’.
These performers are stunning. Not only in unique timing between violin and accordion, but Harrison’s wicked way of turning the violin’s back into a tabla with very small percussive pads, and most of all (the theme demands it) for an eternal fluttering of birds of different hues bowed as insouciant improv with micro-bounces.
Dee though dominates the first half particularly in a show of now 90 minutes; after which she generously gives over more time to her fellow performers. During ‘Fever’ and the final ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ we’re used to Dee interrupting with stats on 90% decline in Nightingales or sewage dumps (plastics are another story) before insouciantly reverting with “Let’s get back to the song”. That does tug a little on righteousness, but where else would you sing it?
Outkine is equally mesmerising in providing drone accompaniments and intricate duetting, and his moment in ‘La Mer’ – a surprise I can’t quite keep to myself. Jordan Paul Clarke leads from an upright stage-right, though purposefully doesn’t draw attention to his instrument, despite a few riffs.
Beyond these musicians though there are several numbers from Josephina Ortiz Lewis, sung with poise and a remarkably high-lying soprano, both breathy and strong. Lewis also dances with the non-singing but recital-leading Sophia Priolo, herself a wickedly glinting dancer, but even more a reciter of her own work. She’s an activist and has worked on sea projects for three years.
There’s also the story of a Croatian biologist who persuaded the Norwegian government to lend him ships to clear plastic floating in the Atlantic the size of France Three years through covid and starting in 2021 aged 27 he’s still at it.
Indeed Dee, whether tipping up plastic and later collecting it (with help from the audience when it drifts under their feet) enjoys a particularly fraught relationship with the abusive substance. She points up the fact that bar some paper-covered lipstick she wears no make-up, underscoring just how much plastic packaging is used there or covering vegetables. She enjoins those boxed seasonals locally sourced. Indeed Dee’s sparkly ruby hat is taken from a friend’s waste plastic. No skimping on the glamour elsewhere: but it’s sober.
Dee has enfolded her colleagues in a warm hug, and it shows. This show is a delight, and has moved on from its Edinburgh iteration. The lectures as such don’t feel overlong, and if there’s a palpable design on us, who could object to its urgency, or its starry messenger? A gem.
Devised and led by Janie Dee and Musically directed by Jordan Paul Clarke, Set and Costume Designer Ian Nicholas, Lighting and Sound Designer Venus Raven,
PR David Burns
