Elaine Stritch at Liberty

Published Monday 4 August 2008 at 10:35 by Paul Vale

Tony and Emmy award-winning Elaine Stritch returns to London with a truncated version of her irreverent one-woman show.

At 80 years of age, Stritch is still able to hold an, albeit senior audience spellbound and the magic that she brings to the stage is a mixture of song, comedy routines and a no doubt cathartic confession of her battle with the bottle throughout much of her career. Stritch’s career reads like a who’s who of Broadway and she litters much of her stage patter with affectionate and often ribald references to Brando, Merman, Coward, Garland, Sondheim and many others blended into a selection of highlights from her musical career.

The number Civilisation (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo) from her first revue Angel in the Wings turned out to be a re-discovered delight in an evening peppered with other classics such as Broadway Baby, Why Do the Wrong People Travel and the number that many will remember her for, The Ladies Who Lunch from Sondheim’s Company. Another Sondheim number made an appearance, although this is the third time this year we have heard I’m Still Here sung at the Shaw by a great Broadway diva. There is also a rather charming rendition of Richard Rogers’ Something Good, which appears as a thank you to her adoring audience, not just this evening but throughout her career.

Still outspoken and highly unpredictable, Elaine Stritch at Liberty paints a vivid and no less entertaining portrait of life backstage in the second half of the 20th century.