Adnet has a
quavery quality at times that adds some tension as she starts a song - will she carry it off, one wonders, can she manage?
Despite the fact that her
quavery high notes are showing signs of wear and tear, the compassion and humanity of her performance were that of a great artist.
The
quavery title track is throwback AoR at its very worst, and Hopeless lives up to its title.
They will recall this aged Pontiff with hooded eyes and
quavery voice sitting amid his cardinals, none of them under 70.
From further afield, Emo Phillips, the loopy
quavery American comic who has been a firm favourite with Edinburgh audiences, is back after a five-year gap to whoop it up at the Pleasance Over The Road.
Darlington is a buffo singer, and his
quavery voice trivialized the role of Adriana's unrequited lover.
It's a sort of silvery
quavery affair which somehow adds immeasurably to the comic overtones of her contribution to Wythall Theatre Company's current production ofA Chorus of Disapproval at the Palace Theatre, Redditch.
The second-act "Closer Than Ever"--the most Lloyd Webberish number in a score that generally keeps its own twinkly, lilting, distinctly Eastern beat--is undersold by a thin-voiced Jaffrey and the barely less
quavery Ghatak.
Lest there be any suspense about the outcome, the play's flashback structure demolishes that, with Priesfiey (a
quavery Stephen Boxer) recalling events from a later life that finds him no less tearful now than he was then.
Neuwirth's
quavery alto and weary sensuality lend Jenny a vivid if somewhat monochromatic, stern presence; the comic chops she displayed in "Sweet Charity" and "Chicago" are MIA here.
It's characteristic of what's missing that a
quavery Sheila Reid, playing the impish mother to Christopher Pizzey's rather lumpen Jack, misses most of her comic targets, while Damian Lewis -- doubling as the Wolf and then Cinderella's Prince -- doesn't come naturally by the vocal attack, and innate comedy, needed for the Princes' delicious duet, "Agony." As for Frank Middlemass as the sacrificial narrator, suffice it to say that this venerable performer on this occasion is so off form that he never quite seems to be in the show.
