Mandy Patinkin Lights Up Duke of York’s Theatre

It is credit to Patinkin’s consummate stage performance that he can make this many mistakes and still have such an assemblage of London’s finest pearl-clad showgoers whooping for more.

We are half way through a vein-poppingly muscular rendition of Sondheim’s Franklin Shepard Inc. when Patinkin, in a reassuringly transparent act of honesty, simply forgets the words. He owns up to his folly, tries again, fails again, tries again, fails again ad finitum. Frankly, there are so many words in this most frantic of songs that he could have spat out the lyrics to Mack the Knife and this writer would not have noticed.

But that it is not what Mandy Patinkin is here to do. In his 11-night residency at the snug Duke of York’s Theatre, the award-winning Broadway star is seeking to open up the heart of the sometime impenetrable world of the Musical in a forthright, unobstructed manner.

Accompanied by a sole pianist, Patinkin moves through the Great American Songbook at pace with very little by way of explanation or contextualisation. Many of tonight’s songs, of course, need no introduction. Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Brother, Can You Spare Me a Dime? are mandatory in such a production, but interpretations of Al Jolson’s Sonny Boy and Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody to open the show are glorious illustrations of the grandiloquence of this particular artform.

On a naked stage, armed with a handful of curious props (cigars, megaphones…giant newspapers), Patinkin summons the pomp and power of Broadway so engagingly that the interval-less two hour show seems all too short.

There are some more peculiar moments. The segueing of Prospero’s monologue from Shakespeare’s The Tempest into a maudlin rendering of John Lennon’s Imagine is possibly the least expected act of the night (and surely the most ill-advised) whilst extracts from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, read more sincerely than even Lincoln himself had thought possible, perhaps fall on cynically deaf ears. Nevertheless, you don’t pay to see Broadway if you’re not willing to swallow a healthy spoonful of schmaltzy Americana.

Patinkin is Chicago/New York-Jewish born and bred and displays suitably impeccable comic timing in all his repartee with the audience even at his most exposed. Charlie Chaplin impersonations are mixed with baseball sing-a-longs, Yiddish-language versions of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and hilarious anecdotes about the size of Academy Award-winning actor William Hurt’s penis. It’s Broadway/West End at its best. It’s all wwwonderful daaarling. It really is.

Mandy Patinkin performs until January 18
Duke of York’s Theatre
St. Martin’s Lane
WC2N 4BG

Box office: 0870 060 6623