An Evening with Anthony Warlow

Everything was alright with the world (despite wearing masks), as we sat back and listened to the mellifluous tones of Anthony Warlow doing what he does best – sing show songs.

The audience was in musical theatre heaven when he gave a superb reading of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Soliloquy’ from Carousel. Equally exciting was his smoldering turn with the razor, ‘My Friends’ from Sweeney Todd, but the excitement reached fever pitch when he repeated his Phantom of the Opera role with ‘The Music Of The Night’. The applause was almost stampede level.

The concept of the concert had ABC Classic FM’s Christopher Lawrence interviewing Warlow about his career a-la This is Your Life, as they sat beside a 1950’s radiogram and pulled out various vintage LPs. Growing up in Wollongong listening to opera, segued into his time with The Australian Opera and a couple of snippets from Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, before the fiendishly difficult G&S patter song ‘The Nightmare Song’ from Iolanthe.

‘Rock a Bye Your Baby’ gave him a chance to indulge in some impersonations of famous stars, the best and funniest being Michael Crawford in his Some Mother’s Do Have ‘Em phase. His partner in life and a performer in her own right, Amanda Lea Le Vergne, whom he met whilst appearing in the Broadway production of Annie, sang ‘Broadway Baby’ and ‘Too Darn Hot’ in a big Broadway belt, and together, naturally, they did a long-medley of tunes from that moppet classic.

A big-band Nelson Riddle-type arrangement written by Tommy Tycho of ‘Just in Time’, ‘I’m Nobody’s Baby Now’ and ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance’ led into the closer which included a recording of Warlow as a kid singing Harry Secombe’s cover of the 60s hit ‘This Is My Song’, followied by Warlow repeating it with the orchestra.

Vanessa Scammell, who’s worked with Warlow on at least four shows, and did sterling work with the baton, played piano accompaniment in the encore of Warlow and Le Vergne dueting on Leonard Bernstein’s melancholic ‘Some Other Time’, from On the Town, a fitting finale to a joyous concert.

Peter Pinne   

Photographer: Darren Thomas.