Rating: ★★★★
Venue: Vaudeville Theatre, London
Four leading stars of the West End and Broadway will perform exclusive Westway Concerts at the Vaudeville Theatre: Lee Mead, Cassidy Janson, Kerry Ellis and Aimie Atkinson. The series opens with TV and West End star Lee Mead, who brings his brand-new show The Best of Me to the Vaudeville. Next up is Oliver Award winner Cassidy Janson (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, & Juliet), followed by Kerry Ellis (Wicked, We Will Rock You) with her much talked about show Queen of the West End. And finally, Aimie Atkinson (SIX, Pretty Woman) returns to the West End to perform songs from her new album as well as career defining hits.
With a career spanning 25+ years in theatre and television, Lee Mead has a huge repertoire of songs to choose from for this latest show, ‘Best of Me’. Playing in the West End for one night only before taking it on tour we are treated to a vast selection of Lee's favourite songs in the first in a series of ‘Westway Sessions’ showcasing the best talent the West End has to offer.
Taking place at the Vaudeville Theatre, Lee opens the show with a powerful rendition of ‘Paint it Black: which gives us an idea of the incredible vocals we can expect over the evening. The set list is a good mix of theatre and popular music, giving Mead the opportunity to showcase his vocal range. There are some wonderful comedy moments as he reprises songs he has sung in shows gone by including ‘Sister Act’, ‘Chicago’ and of course, the show that started it all ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’.
We get an insight into Lee’s start into the world of performing as he presents two songs from Grease in which he played Danny in high school. The pace of the show stays high throughout the evening, with Lee chatting to the audience between songs, giving us showbiz insights to both his personal history and the history of the shows the songs are taken from. He shows his charismatic personality and brings his humour to the forefront and also shows us he’s not afraid to look a fool sometimes for the laugh.
Lee is joined by a 5 piece band; Adam Dennis (MD and keys), Tim Rose (guitar), Dan Francis Owen (bass), George Millard (sax), Jonathan Atkinson (drums) and Simon Jayes (drum tech) who do a fantastic job of enhancing the vocals from Lee. Lee was also joined by old friend Brenda Edwards to perform ‘A Kind of Magic’, which given that Brenda had that same morning arrived home from a holiday in Barbados was performed with exceptional energy.
The pop songs chosen all have meaning to Lee in different ways and though wonderfully performed, it is the musical theatre numbers where he really shines and you are reminded just how good he is!
This is a must see for any Lee Mead fan; you won’t be disappointed with the offering of fantastic songs, great chat and some delightful surprises.
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