Barbra and Liza Live! Review

November 7, 2024

Barbra and Liza Live! Review

6th – 17th November 2024

There are a couple of divas in town but you won’t find the fabulous Barbra and Liza emerging from a stretch limo or strutting along a red carpet. Instead they are lighting up the stage of the humble Charing Cross Theatre.

It’s a former Victorian music hall tucked away in the arches under Charing Cross station. Inside, the seats are fraying at the edges and you can hear a train occasionally rattling overhead.

But when Steven Brinberg and Rick Skye get going on bringing to life Barbra Streisand and Liza Minelli, you forget where you are and allow yourself to be taken on a journey into the world of two of the best-loved singing sensations of the age.

“…forget where you are and allow yourself to be taken on a journey into the world of two of the best-loved singing sensations of the age”

Multi award-winning Brinberg has been ‘doing’ Streisand for over 30 years and has toured the world with his show ‘Simply Barbra.’ Sporting the singer’s classic smooth blonde hairstyle half covering his face, he embodies Streisand, chatting away about starring in Funny Girl 60 years ago and other starry reminiscences as if he were her. He says of his act: ‘I am an interpreter, not an impersonator.’

Then he steps into the red spotlight, takes the microphone, and uncannily produces the nasal tone, soft yet powerful sound and huge range of Barbra Streisand’s utterly distinctive voice.

I was never a particular fan of Streisand, but this show went a long way to turn me into one. The way Brinberg sang iconic numbers like ‘The Way We Were,’ ‘People’ and Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Send in the Clowns’ raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

It was not all sentimental ballads, he had a fine line in comedy too. He sang every line of Sondheim’s ‘I’m Still Here’ impersonating a different voice, from Julie Andrews to Maggie Smith via, magnificently, Gillian Anderson in her role as Margaret Thatcher.

For this show Brinberg has teamed up with Rick Skye who has been ‘doing’ Liza Minelli for some 20 years and has also written and performed in a string of comic reviews.

Skye looks more like the actor Tony Curtis in drag than the diminutive star of Cabaret and wisely makes little attempt to impersonate her. Instead, he belts out a couple of her best known numbers and devotes the rest of his act to some excellent comedy.

His quirky songs include one about a woman who doesn’t speak her man’s language, because it is sign language. When she learns it, she finds out he is an illegal immigrant, among other unwelcome things. Musical director and brilliant accompanist, Nathan Martin, chuckled all the way through this one, which is always a good sign.

Brinberg and Skye’s efforts at singing duets as Barbra and Liza are less successful, but all told, it was a very enjoyable evening.

Gill Swain